By Margaret Evans, Editor

Editor’s Note: I first published this essay four years ago, just before the 2016 election. It’s uncanny – and frankly, unsettling – how timely it still feels. Maybe even more so? Replace “hurricane” with “pandemic” near the end of the piece, and I could have written it yesterday. But like many of you, I’m mentally and spiritually exhausted, and I just didn’t feel like writing yesterday. – Margaret

By Margaret Evans, Editor 

It was a breezy October evening, not quite dark, when we arrived at our destination, a wide, welcoming porch looking out on a gold-tipped marsh. 

         Reader, we were there to socialize. There were only six of us – three couples – but there was no denying the festivity in the air, the merriment in the eyes, the open wine bottles, the heavenly smells wafting from the kitchen. This was a party! It almost felt naughty, like a scandal. We were busting loose, throwing caution to the Lowcountry wind, thumbing our noses at Covid. And it felt good.

By Margaret Evans, Editor

For generations, American parents have been tutoring their children in some version of the following concept:  “It doesn't matter what people look like on the outside; it's the inside that counts.” 

            My mother said this to me, her mother said it to her, and I have said it, ad nauseam, to my own daughter. Trust me, this is just something mothers say.