These past weeks have been full of activity and questions and motion. On campus, it’s that stressful time of the semester full of both scrambling and sluggishness. You can overhear students talking about how little they’ve slept, how many pages they have to write, how they can’t do dinner this week but maybe next week. Off campus, the world seems to be cracking and spinning and stalling all at once. There is incredible violence and incredible resistance happening every day, in the moments we talk about and in the moments we don’t.

All this has me feeling overwhelmed, scared, and small. Enough so that it doesn’t feel quite right to be doing the same things I always do: class, swim, the O. It feels easy to question how meaningful these things are when I think about all of the parts of the world. In moving forward with the same old routine, I worry that I am not fully pausing to hold the weight of now.

But it’s happening and I’m doing it. And on this night, after hours spent with this magazine, here are some things I know to be true: This publication is full of love. It is full of intentional thoughts, of careful decisions made. And knowing that reminds me of how much I believe in what we are doing—telling stories, starting conversations, even just saying some words that matter. And this is worthwhile.

So in these last few moments of the year, I’m trying to remember how the small things can feel heavy with meaning just as much as the big ones. I’m trying to understand that motion and stillness can happen at the same time. And I am trying to both sink into this stillness and feel purposeful in moving forward. Our magazine is a place where I find and explore these contradictions. I hope in these pages you find a way to pause and consider them as well.