01

THE MONTH OF JANUARY IS SLOW AT BEST, a sock-footed tip-toe out of first semester back into the rush and fervor of the second. However, it’s also a month of new beginnings, the idealized thought that “this will be my year”. As we begin another 12 months, we also look back at what we leave behind. Boxes of polaroids, flowers pressed between letters, unsent messages — the things that could have been. As seniors, the editors have been poring over four years of memories, the looming threat of the future, and the unsettling realization that we are not who we used to be.

It might seem confusing that the magazine is titled Issue 1, considering we’ve been around since 2009. But our archives are riddled with holes — the La Pluma legacy has faded like an old film reel. As we began to rebuild, taking naught but our Google Drive login into the new school year, we rescheduled our meetings, reformatted our website, and refilled our pens. With a new advisor, a new team, and a fresh new perspective, we began our first in-person meetings in 2 years. As we watched our members talk late into the night on our discord server or collectively plot a pig rebellion against an evil bunny regime, a warm, close-knit community took shape.

Every piece in this publication is a testament to our growth as we remember to look to the future as well as the past. Let’s dust off washed-out photos and flip through forgotten journals filled with streetlight dances, graveside confessions, and stargazing not-quite-lovers. Throughout this semester, we learned to see a blank page not as vast emptiness but as infinite possibility, and that while some things are better left unsaid, no voice should go unheard.