American River Review 2022 - copy - Flipbook - Page 9
PROLOGUE
Dear readers:
After the pandemic stripped many of us of our usual distractions, we
have had to come to face ourselves in ways that, perhaps, we’ve never done
before. Many of us had a habit of tucking things away in our closets to deal with
another day. But the last year and a half has put us in close proximity to those
closets and the things that lay hidden away inside of them. Our generations are
facing an identity crisis. Through confronting parts of ourselves that we were
once able to tuck away, or discovering new parts of ourselves that we had never
had the opportunity to explore, our world is taking on a new shape.
Now more than a year and a half into a pandemic that we never expected to last so long, we are having fewer conversations about returning to
normal, and more about our new normal. What will our new normal look like?
So much of the people we were at the start of this pandemic has changed. How
can we return to the normal of January and February 2020, when the people
who lived inside of that world for all intents and purposes no longer exist?
In the process of rebuilding our new world, we must be mindful of the
things of what we take away from this pandemic. Will the bricks that build our
new society be molded by the breaking down of stigmas? Of honest conversations around mental health and identity? Of selfdiscovery and exploration? Of
renewed passions? Of the value of family and friends, and all those encounters
which fill our social desires? Or will they be rife with newfound anxieties?
With fears? With distance?
Even as we find ourselves still – for the most part – stuck at home,
we are starting to rebuild. We’re starting to have gatherings again. Some are
returning to work. Little by little, we are spending more time on the ground
outside, and losing some of our proximity to those closets that we’re so prone to
tucking things away inside. Perhaps we should keep the door open, and let
it all out.
The Editors of the American River Review