I am not a succinct person. I never have been. Rather than mince words, I’ll draw them out into a luxurious five-course feast. Whether I’m talking or writing, brevity has never been my strong suit. More than once in my life, I’ve heard, “Just get to the point.” I would much rather tell a colorful story filled with twists and turns than simply get to the point. I prefer a tapestry of words wrapped around me than short statements that leave me cold. Nothing against anyone who prefers shorter conversation or readings, but it’s just not who I am. During difficult times in my life, having a place to “say something” about whatever the challenge was gave me hope. Writing things down or talking them through always made things better. I have tried in my personal and past professional lives to pass along that hope to others. To say what others couldn’t or inspire people with my musings. Words have power. They can comfort someone desperately in need. They can raise awareness of issues in need of addressing. They can entertain, spark creativity, inspire, inform, change minds and teach. Words can motivate others to make the world a better place, and creativity is a key that opens many doors. It can influence change in a wide range of spheres, spiritual, cultural and political. It is a source of hope, a quest for meaning, an attempt to access the enigma of the self and even the mystery of being. This issue is no different.

This issue of Emerge Literary Journal has me thinking a lot about place, where we set anchor. When we transition from one home to another, one city to another, one job to another, or must endure a challenging life moment that skews our compass, we’re left feeling groundless. Like stirred-up sediment, the view is muddy until it settles. And it takes time to settle. October feels like an in-between state, when the momentum and frenzy of the previous months merges with the languor and short days of wintertime. Like a rock dropped into water, or dirt kicked up in a pond, we are suspended for a moment in a slower season. I welcome this change of pace, even though I tend to buck transition. I am in the midst of starting a new job after being home for a decade, and while I look forward to making a fresh beginning and embracing a new chapter, I am mentally cataloging all of the precious parts of the longtime routine I’m leaving. This life has been mine for a while, and though it is only a structure, I feel connected to it in an intimate and personal way.

Humans are built for attachment. But when we step back, we understand that what we are seeking outside of ourselves, we’re also seeking within. To feel at home anywhere requires us to feel at home within ourselves, though we can be inspired, stimulated, moved, comforted, and held by the spaces we inhabit. Issue 32 of Emerge Literary Journal touches on the in-between spaces, those that aren’t our own but that help us recharge. Think of the intimacy of freedom from grief and trauma like living inside deep woods, secret gardens, or nearby vineyards. Inevitably, as autumn unfolds, we’ll fall into a familiar rhythm and find our routines. The days will ring of crisp, musky air and pumpkins and overflowing lawns filled with fallen leaves. October is the jumping-off place, the beginning of another transition. Moments of transition mean that something important has come to an end, but only then can we welcome a new beginning—and the promise of more insulated, freer days to come. And certainly, we have all faced a lot of newness and uncertainty. Similarly, to write about freedom is to accept the inevitability of an unfinished sentence. A sense of finality, which the most impatient of us tend to mistake for achievement, is what forces some of us to abandon hope, and float in contentment. Freedom as a pause in an endless passage of struggle is a more modest way to deal with reality.

Under the most oppressive circumstances, I believe a person can keep and experience their freedom, in that freedom becomes a state of mind. It is born (and often dies) in the mind. It’s often called dignity, refusal, rebellion. I re-imagine the means of freedom and its various forms. Like the state of being in love, the experience of freedom knows no bounds, I think. Every time one makes a decision, he or she redefines the space of self-expression. We value the freedom to find or make our own meanings; we look for the words that feel right, that lead us to some understanding. We inhabit a bewilderment that helps us focus our questions. Yes, I think bewilderment is the term I want to use for a confusion that’s generative; bewilderment suggests being returned to the wild, to an elemental lost-ness with which I must “come to terms.” It’s a productive chaos and it’s painful, but its pain is the pain of trying to see clearly, the satisfying pain of great effort, like lifting a heavy object or swimming a long distance to shore. Out of such productive lost-ness comes, with integrity and art, the work collected in Issue 32. Each one in its own way asks us to know one another, to meet somewhere in the still wild and authentic world.

While there is a host of recurring themes in this issue, at the forefront of these images and motifs—among currents, elemental forces, and the breath—there is a collection of writing that was intent on exploring the intimacy of freedom. Intimacy is a house with many rooms, and Issue 32 exists in the room upstairs at the end of the hall, shared by two lovers who’ve decided to stay—for a weekend or forever, no one can say. Sometimes they kiss, sometimes they bite. They dream they’re in heaven. They swear they’re in hell. That room. But they’re free to do anything, and they do. With that I argue to spend time with another’s work is a further way to be intimate, to experience intimacy with strangers around the complexities of the human spirit, even if the limits of this exchange are part of the contract in the first place. Each piece is intimate—when our contributors tell their stories, you’ll get to know a bit about them, too. Please, dear reader, sit with these works, curl up with them, have a glass of wine: let this work free you in a way the author has already freed themselves. Be the couple in the room. Do anything and have fun doing it.

Warmest,

Ariana

Be Well. Write Well. Read Well.