What Lingers

Notes from the month’s edge

As this month draws to a close, what lingers with me is the strain I feel moving through our communities — the hum of an electrified political climate that pulls attention toward urgency and away from the quieter things that shape who we are. In moments like this, culture, craft, and memory can feel fragile, as if they sit just outside the frame while we focus on what’s immediate and unresolved.

I find myself returning to the belief that craft still matters — not as nostalgia for its own sake, but as a form of care. Making, remembering, and paying attention are ways of staying oriented when the ground feels unsteady. Even small, deliberate acts of creation can remind us that meaning is built slowly, and that what we value doesn’t disappear simply because it isn’t loud.

I’m aware, too, of how easily we can lose one another — neighbors, friends, shared reference points — as familiar cultural threads begin to fray. And yet I hold to the idea that people themselves become a force of renewal. When we choose to remember, to make, and to stand by what we know to be humane and sustaining, we participate in the ongoing work of culture and democracy alike.

What I hope Nostalgic Confections and Confectionally Yours Journal continue to offer is not certainty, but continuity. A reminder that our path is unfinished, and that care in craftsmanship, freedom to create, and the dignity of living freely are not luxuries — they are enduring human rights. In times like these, returning to the work of making and remembering feels less like retreat, and more like resolve.

Thank you for being here, and for carrying these values forward in your own ways.

Thank you for reading —
Emery

This letter is part of my ongoing work with Confectionally Yours and The Palimpsest.