Editor’s Note
2021
, o l l He
S
rebuilding the site. It’s time consuming, frustrating, challenging, hard, and there are times that I want to shuck the whole thing, run away to some deserted island, and never sit at a desk again. Sometimes I even make it as far as my front porch and a whiskey or rum drink while making a list of what to pack. And then some reader will reach out to me and tell me how much they love the magazine, how much they learn from it, or how much they look forward to seeing each new issue, and I slink back to my desk, open the WordPress template, and get back to work. I’m not making any promises of exactly when you can expect it, but there will be another new website up at some point in 2021. I’ve made too much progress to give up now, and I’ve accepted that if I want to keep Southern Tides alive and well, a website must be a significant component. I won’t stand down with the print version either. There’ve been many challenges this past year. No new growth because selling ads becomes nearly impossible when you can’t call on potential advertisers. So, I’m working on plans to get around that as well, some of which involve going back to the basics. We still have mail and email, we still have phones, and I can use those tools. Getting out into the community to write articles was also challenging, but this too can be overcome. Solo visits to take photos, reaching out to the community for their photos and stories, more interviews via phone and internet, more online research, and maybe even some new regular columns from key figures in the community. There are still choices, still options, still possibilities, still hope, and I’m not giving up. I’ll continue to do whatever it takes, and I hope each of you will too. Hello, 2021!
ometimes I read back through past columns I’ve written to see what I had to say at the same time in previous years. In part so I don’t repeat myself! And in part to see if something I wrote in the past might spark ideas for the current column. But as I sit down to write the sixth Happy New Year from Southern Tides, the previous five seem written in another lifetime. They were fitting at the time and offered bits of advice for heading into each new year. • Be the person you know you should be. • The path to reaching goals is up to what happens after you put your feet on the floor each new day. • Be part of the solution, rather than part of the problem. • Leave the world better than you found it when you look back on the coming months a year from now. After a year like 2020 though, it’s hard to look forward to 2021 with the positive attitudes we typically feel at the start of a new year. It feels more like we’re hanging back a bit, eyeing it warily, prepared for fight or flight should it lunge at us. That’s an uncomfortable feeling for a perpetual optimist, which I am (as wearisome as my friends sometimes find this trait). I can’t help myself. No matter how bad things get, optimism comes bubbling up to the surface and I find myself looking for the good in the chaos, the silver linings in the clouds, and ways to turn negatives into positives. How am I doing that now? By continuing to go forward, refusing to stand down. Last year when this mess all started, I built a website for the magazine. I discovered after only three months that it wasn’t big enough for all the content I need to upload with each new issue, and it threw me off track for a while. I’d just invested all that work for something that was essentially useless! I spent a lot of time (too much time) weighing my options, and as with most things in life, it came down to two choices. Quit or keep going. So, I did the research and found another hosting plan that would meet our size requirements and I’m now in the process of
See you out there!
Amy Thurman
Editor in Chief amy@southerntidesmagazine.com
January 2021
Southern Tides Magazine
7
