January 2025 has been hard for many of us. I won’t talk about my personal loss in detail because it is too large for this space. But I will mention that it is a loss that is blanketed with regret, which creates a lump from my throat to my heart. I’m angry at one person, too, so the combination–grief, regret and anger–is fitting at this time, as fires and storms rage through our planet, as ruthless world leaders play with human lives like chess pieces simply to increase their personal power, to advance their ego, to increase their wealth, to solidify their historical legacy in monumental (and horrific) ways–the alternative, that is, to be forgotten, an unacceptable fate. January 2025 has made it hard to feel hope or see beauty. 

Yet, in the midst of my great personal loss, hope and beauty surfaced from unexpected places. Family members from whom I had been estranged for years wrapped me in warmth and shared grief, past grudges vanishing in the profundity of the event, an event we would have liked to wish away. We would have done without the special gathering. But there we were: together, a miracle. So we gathered the tears and stories and even laughter that snowed and swirled in our shared space of impending loss, and we held on tight while life was still in the room, and we rubbed life’s head, and we squeezed her fingers gently, basking in the return squeeze, and we spoke words close to her face, and we told her we loved her so, so much, and we said she was–IS–wonderful, and we sang her songs, and we showed her pictures, and we said hello and goodbye and I will see you tomorrow. 

In Volume 6, Issue 1 of Club Plum, there is loss and beauty and some hope, too. Parents leave us in traumatic ways after lives of pain. Or they sink into their rooms and belongings and dust, keeping the passage of time at bay. Pets disappear in the snow. We leave newfound friends forever, but we never forget their idiosyncratic beauty, frozen in time in our memories. As children, we learn from our adult neighbors who give us fascinating stories and objects, and we give them friendship in return. We document the lives of women and friends who came before us, who assisted in making us who we are, and that’s not nothing.

Please remove your shoes and take soft steps into this issue. We are glad you are here.

Yours in words and art,

Thea

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