Three-Year Anniversary Musings — Letter From a Contributing Editor

To our dearest readers, writers and fellow wanderers:

An impromptu roadtrip in early 2019 led me to the cozy interior of James River Brewery, where I was savoring an English bitter alongside some of Scottsville, Virginia’s finest townsfolk when Mayor Nancy Gill flung open a conversational door that would enrich my life more than I ever would have guessed back then: “So, what’s your story?”

I was a months-old college graduate, working the daily lunch rush in a downtown café and trying hard to find my footing in that new and wide-open chapter; and, deep in my bones and according to my freshly minted degree, I was a storyteller with a penchant for those rich, vibrant tales pulsating with grit and gusto and lifeblood. At the mention of the latter, Mayor Gill, God bless her soul, told me of Pilgrim Magazine and offered a bit of advice (though it was really conveyed as more of an imperative) I’ll be forever grateful I heeded: “You should meet Ashley.”

Now, one blink of an eye and two years of social media friendship later, it’s such a deep honor, sincere privilege and dream come true to work alongside her as contributing editor to fill Pilgrim Magazine with some of the most beautiful and compelling narratives and imagery I’ve ever come upon. To those of you who’ve been part of this journey—thank you truly, from the very bottom of my heart. Thank you for your vulnerability, for your trust, for your patience as we’ve double-fisted this labor of deep, deep love with full-time jobs and the surprises and demands of the day-to-day. These palpable, straight-from-the-heart pieces of you, infusing every prosaic word and every aperture setting, are precious artifacts; sacred, inspired works of art forged with fervor and intention and, in some cases, literal blood, sweat and tears. It’s not often that words fail me, but I’m at a loss for how to appropriately convey the immensity of my gratitude. Just know that Pilgrim Magazine is the entity that it is—and we are the editors and curators that we are—because of you.

Perhaps it’s the raging sentimentalist in me, or the acoustic playlist shuffling nostalgia through the coffeehouse where I’m writing this, but something about this journey casts an emotional spell on me. This side of the pandemonium of 2020, the sight of so many beautiful reflections from pre-pandemic escapades housed in one place just feels so very right, like a cool glass of water bringing new life to parched and longing lips.

Last April, a month after southwest Arizona’s initiation into the COVID-19 pandemic and a work-from-home stint that, for my colleagues and I, would span more than a year, I wrote in a thread-bound journal gifted from my aunt:

“I’m unable to travel far these days, what with stay-at-home directives elicited by the coronavirus pandemic and near-shutdowns of everything deemed nonessential. I’ve hardly left my apartment for little more than a daily walk along the avenue, around the corner to fetch field-fresh vegetables from kindhearted neighbors, occasionally detouring to the nearest drive-thru for the sake of fresh, salty French fries. So I’ve resorted to travelling the archives—journeying across old terrain, old roadtrips, and adventures logged in technicolor still frames that tell thousand-word tales. Never before have I been so grateful to be the sort of sentimentalist who takes too many photos and scribbles too many thoughts onto paper scraps and old receipts in the bottom of my purse and between thin black lines printed onto journal pages…”

In July 2020, I returned home to the Blue Ridge Mountains (which I profess my undying love for in my latest piece) to throw a socially distanced summer barbecue for my nearest-and-dearest loved ones; the times, they were a-changing and begging to be savored with a sense of urgency. My parents’ lawn was dotted with canopies and camping chairs, hamburgers and hotdogs and potato salad, one smoky bonfire and the love of my people stretching late into the night, making my heart dance just like the fireflies. I kicked myself later for not snapping a single photo, but I’ve found that some moments don’t translate quite the same way in megapixels as they do when tucked close to the heart, wrapped in the gift of presence—a gift I’d find myself thanking God for two short months later, when the sudden and devastating loss of my grandmother brought me home once more.

In many ways, the last year feels like a dream, one entwined with beauty and pain, highlights and lowlights, a lopsided ratio of wild to wonderful and back pockets holding modest yet invaluable sums of nonmonetary richness. While there’s a very large part of me that’s relieved to count 2020 as a thing of the past, to be halfway through another year that’s seemingly nearer to “normal” than we’ve felt in a long, long while, there’s another part that feels quite nostalgic, having both lamented and relished the sudden shift of things that shoved grief and hope between the same margins. Among other things, I’m grateful this long strand of months and days stayed true to the tradition of those before them in neglecting to look anything like I’d expected.

As Pilgrim grows into its third year as a publication, I can’t wait to see what’s bound to unfold, the stories that will take shape as travel resumes with progressively fewer restrictions, and the ways we’ll each grow more and more into ourselves as dreamers and visualists and writers and poets and people—together.

To the storytellers here who’ve “stuck with it” amid this strange and unusual season, you are invaluable and I’m immensely grateful to know you. And to those on the outskirts, dreaming of someday baring your soul to the masses in black and white and technicolor tales—this space is for you, too. Start where you are; the timing is just as “right” there as anywhere else. And, most importantly, never underestimate the life-changing power of a roadtrip. (Or talking to strangers. Or a good microbrew.)

All my love,
Rachel