How do we find our bearings?

It might be as simple as planting a sure step down a steep hill. Or it might mean reaching for something permanent, something to protect us against turbulence and loss, against the way each moment unspools after the last, relentlessly shifting, without pause.

Throughout this issue, our contributors chart such uncertainty with maps of their own making. In each and every piece, they have illuminated patterns and anchors of all kinds to guide you; some are light as the gossamer threads of a spiderweb or the grid a window casts across a quilt. Others weigh like river stones or the gripping roots of a tree, while still others remain secret as the last cricket song heard on a childhood porch or two pinkies locked just a little longer in a promise no one else might ever know.

On the slope of this year’s end, we hope you’ll encounter a place to rest within these words, a chance to find your footing between this moment and the next.

— Cara Downey & Erin Calabria