DEAR READER,

Nostalgia is a fitting theme for this issue. It is a feeling I know well, a bittersweet knot in my stomach as I sit down to write this letter. I must confess I’ve laid awake at night thinking about my memories of this magazine so far, thinking about what story I should tell, how the words should unravel. Do I tell you about my high school journalism teacher who encouraged me to write, or perhaps about starting at the Observer 3.5 years ago as a freshman copy editor? What does this magazine mean to me? How do I take a feeling so profound, so BIG, and squish it down into neat lines of 10 point font?

As usual, I have more questions than answers. But I dare offer that is what this is all about. We ask questions, as writers and artists and students, yet that does not mean we always have the answers, nor should we.

This whole experience—the Observer, college—all of it will be a memory soon. I have a hard time with that, I’ll admit. I try to grasp moments of time between my hands, so hard that my knuckles turn white and my fingernails leave crescent moons on my palms. But time does this funny thing where it keeps moving and I am left in the doorway, looking at the places I’ve been. The words I’ve written. The people I love.

But not yet.

I am grateful the Observer serves as such a fundamental piece of my memories from college. It has been the constant that has fulfilled and guided me throughout the past seven semesters. But there’s still one more to go. I am filled with excitement, love, joy, and anticipation of creating this magazine with the rest of the Observer staff for another semester. Somehow, it still feels brand new each time.

Writing and art—in other words, creating—is how we hold onto the present as it becomes the past. It is how we make sure there is a record. Record of the students and faculty at this school, of art created, of abuses of power, of people coming together, of people divided. These stories—carefully preserved and protected within these pages—matter so deeply. I am honored to help facilitate the creation and mission of this beautiful magazine of record, and I am honored to have you flip through the pages, reading its words and taking in its art.

Reader, please allow me a moment of indulgent nostalgic recollection: As a young child, I distinctly recall not understanding paragraphs. When assigned to write one for second grade spelling homework, I’d write a story, pages long. My parents laugh about it now, how long it would take me to do something that should’ve been so simple. But how could I just tell part of the story? My brain has always worked this way, bursting to write down every thought, leaving nothing uncompleted and nothing forgotten. I want this magazine to be that space for you, the Tufts community—a space to say everything you haven’t had the opportunity to say yet. A space to have your voice heard, completely.

So many people have poured themselves into this magazine before me, and so many people will continue to make the Observer what it is, and what it can be, after me. I am merely a footnote in its history. Thank you to Lena, Owen, Myisha, Bota, Josie, Aroha, and Sabah for doing this first and so well. Thank you Juanita, Anna, and Angela for doing this alongside me now. You are so beautifully talented, and I am incredibly lucky to share this experience with you.

And of course, thank you Amanda—for being my co-editor-in-chief, the other half of my brain, and my best friend. We started this journey together freshman year as the quietest of the copy editors who found each other because we didn’t want to go to an Observer bonding by ourselves… Now our house is well-known to much of the O staff. You’ve made me a better writer, a better editor, and most importantly a better person. In all the memories I’ve created at the O, meeting you remains my favorite.

Thank you to the entirety of the Observer staff for your laughter and love. And to my friends for the same. And thank you, reader. Yes, you. For holding on to the memories with us.

With love, Melanie