It takes effort for me to live in the present.
Since I can remember I’ve always been playing a game of hide and seek, hiding from the past, running towards the future, always struggling just to stop for a while. And I don’t think that’s uncommon. As much as we can all say – ‘you shouldn’t live in the past’ – god it’s a glorious place of possibilities in replays and replays and curiosities. I write only in past tense or future tense, and issue 4 is about the past.
The creation of issue 4 has been strange. It was the first time I’ve really felt intense pressure to pick a half decent theme since the reception to issue 3 was so incredible and suddenly my brain chain is starting to feel like a real life thing with realistic goals and plans. So the issue was a slow starter and born out of a mess of moodboards and old diaries. But I think the creation of issue 4 perfectly mirrors it’s subject matter. The present has kept on moving to the past as this issue was made, and each day I feel like I’ve seen it become more and more relevant.
I’ve been through 2 breakups, moved away from home and friends and seen present plans and feelings fade to distant. With Brexit and Trump the world has fallen asleep and woken up in 1920. I’ve read old books that are more relevant than ever (read 1984), watched old films I feel so deeply for I thought I was in them, wore clothes that were my aunties, my mothers, the 90’s. In a period of so much upheaval and change, I feel more lost in the past than ever, both voluntarily; clinging onto it all, and involuntarily as we live through decisions we saw the consequences of almost 100 years ago.
But god am I happy, and endlessly, dizzily proud to present issue 4. Never did I think it will come this far, or stretch this wide. So thank you.
Other people to thank-
Thank you to everyone that tells me I’m cool for doing this. Thank you to the new contributors; your excitement made me excited again. Thank you to Sam Binstead; for having an eye for fonts and really just for everything else. Thank you to my mum. Thank you to Lucas Jones for pushing me to do more, not because I’m jealous but because I long to live up.Thank you to Josh Verdon for being an absolute tech hero. Thank you to UoS £2.40 chai lattes, and morrisons hummus. Thank you to me. Thank you to you.
The strangest thing is that Kiloran feels so firmly in the present right now. Right on the boundary of the future, and I can’t wait to spill over.