On this last day of the month of January, I took my last look at the last of the page proofs for my next edited anthology: the cover. Then in an email, I gave Pluto Press the go-ahead to send the book to the printer. Then I felt a weird mix of relief, nervousness, disorientation, and melancholy.

It’s no small thing to end a 2.5-year labor-of-love project with a mere press of a “send” button on a computer. “Anticlimactic” is one descriptor.

Of course, it’s not really the end. The printed book will be birthed in April, and then I’ll both hold this next “baby” of mine in my hands and simultaneously let it go out into the world (books grow up fast and run off to live a life of their own).

Still, one suddenly doesn’t have to think about this huge task day in and day out, and equally suddenly, one needs to find the oomph to turn to another book project. That creates a sort of letdown, because there’s really no fanfare involved in sending off page proofs, and no traditions per se around how to “celebrate” or even mark that quiet, simple act.

So I went about the humdrum of my workday, making some money doing my freelance copyediting of someone else’s book. Then I went to a small but sweet film screening about Appalachians fighting to protect the land and lives they love from pipelines. Then I stood under a star-filled sky, breathing in the crisp wintery air, and thought for a moment about the preciousness of life, grief that knows no borders on this imperiled earth, and all the collective care, love, and solidarity that encircle us even if on many days we don’t see or feel them, because like the moon that I couldn’t see this evening, they are there, especially within the world-building we do with and for each other.

Then to put a wrap on this day, I pulled up the page proofs that I last looked at this morning, the front and back covers, and let my eyes and heart take in the brilliance of the colors, boldness of the type, and badass-ness of background image—and felt joy. Or rather, felt gratitude overflow to my dear friend @eff_charm for yet again designing a cover that speaks volumes to anarchic promise, even in the bleakest of times.

For more on the book or to preorder, see:

https://www.plutobooks.com/9780745349954/constellationsofcare

#ConstellationsOfCare
#AnarchaFeminismInPractice

(Note: I couldn’t figure out how to post vertical cover images, so had to add black bands on either side, but they won’t appear on the final book.)