Dear readers (new and old),
Welcome back to MQ. We look a little different this time around, don’t we? Clearly, a lot of things are different in all of our lives. Nearly three months ago, things changed, seemingly overnight. Quickly and suddenly, we had to grapple with quarantine and shuttered businesses, remote classwork and canceled plans. Things are still changing now—we still don’t know what’s going to happen with COVID in the coming months and more recently, many of us are fighting for changes to our social justice system through the Black Lives Matter movement.
Like a lot of you, I’ve watched a lot of Netflix and Hulu over the last couple months, and a lot of the commercials on Hulu like to throw out a line about how we’re “living in a new normal.” I hate that line. We’re not living in a new normal; we’re living through a chapter in a history book, a time of tumultuous change and craziness that comes at us almost faster than we can handle it. Our new normal will be whatever happens when we come out on the other side of this—but we’re far, far from that right now. At the moment, all we can do is be adaptable and figure this out day by day.
That’s what we’ve done at MQ for this final issue. Instead of our usual collection of fun features and quirky profiles, we bring you a series of pieces, many of them written in first-person, about the changes many of us in the Miami community have faced in the past few months due to COVID-19. Most are about day-to-day life during the months of March, April, and May—small snippets of people’s days throughout their time in quarantine. A collection of thoughts from everyday people during historic times. We hope you’ll enjoy them.
And finally, as a graduating (and now graduated) senior, this is my last issue of MQ as a writer and as your Editor-in-Chief. I’ll spare most of the sappy good-byes and Miami farewells I had planned, but I’d like to extend a thank you to every writer, editor, photographer, and designer I worked with during my four years here, and especially over the last two years. Special thanks to Patti Newberry, Fred Reeder, Brittany Meister, Jugal Jain, Hannah Meyer, and Leanne Stahulak—you guys helped keep this magazine running just as much as I did. And of course, thank you to all of you, too—every reader, every person I’ve interviewed, and every person who continues to support this magazine.
Catch you all later,
Kelly McKewin