It’s been about a month since I wrote that first piece that Soheil and I used to test the site layout. “It Begins“, I said.

As I looked over the ridiculously good staff applications a few days later, I started to realize just exactly what was beginning. I don’t think I thought very much of it, though, until I saw how this newly assembled team was able to put together a launch beyond anything for which I could have hoped. Then things started to begin very quickly. Comics, rants, articles, interviews, raps… Almost every day, we were thinking: “Wow, that’s awesome. How can we modify the website to adapt it?”

A few days ago, someone from administration told me: “Hey, you run that website? Yeah, you’d better watch yourself.”

But, I’m not looking at myself. I’m looking at our incredible readers: some returning, many new. Thank you for giving us a chance as a source of information, of laughter, of reflection, and of speculation. Stay a while, won’t you? We like having you around.

I’m looking at the unbelievable list of contributors on our rotation. Without you, this would have been The Reckoner’s second post instead of its sixty-sixth. Thank you for sharing your work with me. Thank you for letting me be just as new to this as you are. Thank you for having such loud voices.

Some of you who know me personally know that I’ve been having a bit of a rough year. I think many of us have. How many ways are there to spend a day? What do you do when someone tells you to be yourself? Where do people go when they disappear? Where will I go?

I’m still pretty much clueless when it comes to those questions. But now, for my own personal reasons, I’d like to thank the readers and staff one more time. The Reckoner is one thing I’m sure of. Thank you for making it possible.

We toyed with different ways of covering Stratford, but I think this way is the best.  I hope you enjoyed the trip – I did. I hope that one day I’ll run into someone there when we’re old. One of us will ask, “Stratford, after all this time?” And of course, the other one will reply: “Always.”

 

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Thank you very much:

Rina Kang, Susie Liu, Annelise Kohler, Lynn Tay, Rigers Rukaj, Vivian An, Masa Jugovic, and others

for letting us use your photos. We know we should have asked, but it was late and we didn’t want to wake you.

 

Thank you, Rigers – for choosing the pictures, and for lots of other things. You’re something else, buddy.