Dear Readers,

 

Our lives are shaped by the intricate networks of relationships that we build from the people, places, and things that surround us. This issue of Sanctuary aims to shed light on the aftermath of relationships we experience every day and those we may only experience in our daydreams.

 

I invite you to scour these pages- feeling the deep connection of knowing someone so well that you could pick them out by the pattern of their breath. Or the feeling of loving an object so much that you wonder what if it were human, as Kay does in her poem “Necessary (Essential) Tools.” I invite you to embody the dull repetition of running errands like in Paige’s “The Ravin’” and the hardship of simply surviving in a world where it’s easy to lose yourself and walk endlessly in circles, as Amy portrays in her poem “Saturn.”

 

I invite you to remember the strain of childhood talent versus motherly discipline when you read Sarah’s story and to let Amy’s story help you better understand the strain memories of past relationships put on ones in the present. I invite you to feel the tension between being tied to the ground and boud to the sky as in Kay’s poetry. WIth Steven and Jacob, I invite you to see the comedy of meeting death and how a relationship with death can be one fraught with humor and humility.

 

By the time you reach the end of this magazine, I hope that you have spent ample time exploring your own relationships– understanding what other people, immaterial items, and nonhuman creatures mean to you. I hope you discover how deeply relationships can weave in and out of our lives, our dreams, and, sometimes, our nightmares.

 

Sincerely,

Emily Teitsworth Managing Editor