The Lexington community has rallied to create a bevy of valuable online resources for staying informed, staying healthy, and supporting our neighbors and local businesses in the midst of the coronavirus outbreak. We’ve compiled a list of these resources – including our Crave Takeout and Dining Guide (quick links to ordering takeout and delivery to dozens of local restaurants) on our website, at www.smileypete.com/covid-19-resources.
Dear Readers,
In the decade that I have been an editor for this magazine, I’ve never written a “letter from the editor.”
I have a strong personal connection to this publication and the work that we do at Smiley Pete Publishing. I’m grateful for the opportunity to pour my professional efforts into coverage of local subjects that I feel strongly about, subjects I think our readers feel pretty good about, too: the local people, businesses and events that make Lexington a unique and wonderful place to live. I feel that our content typically speaks for itself, but these are not typical times.
When the COVID-19 outbreak officially hit Lexington the first week of March, I don’t know if any of us knew how drastically different our lives would all become in the coming weeks. Within a week, the first steps of effectively shutting down all the local establishments and systems that have provided stability and normalcy to our lives had been enacted. Those steps would continue to ripple and increase over the course of the following days. They continue to ripple even as I write this.
I honestly don’t know what our city will look like by the time this magazine hits your hands.
Part of me feels uneasy about putting out a magazine that’s chock full of your regularly scheduled content: “feel good” stories centering on people whose lives have invariably changed, as all of ours have, since I assigned them. Hardworking bands whose livelihoods and ability to perform have been halted indefinitely, businesses whose futures are rocky at best, and events that haven’t yet officially been canceled fill these pages as we head to press, but all have a grave air of uncertainty hanging over them.
But an even bigger part of me longs so deeply for some degree of normalcy, good news and distraction that I am eager beyond belief to share this issue with you – an issue that I and the rest of our staff are quite proud of.
I’m excited to share a wonderful story about Ed McClanahan, a luminous jewel of a Lexingtonian who released not one, but two new books in recent months. April was set to be a big month for Ed, as he celebrated those releases alongside the opening of his first-ever art exhibit, which opens at the downtown gallery Institute 193 this month. As I write this, the exhibit is still scheduled to proceed as planned, albeit without an in-person reception for the 87-year-old artist. In the event that the gallery can’t open to the public at all, I hope they will still hang the show, and turn on the lights at night so passersby can peek through the large wall of windows and behold the illuminated collection Ed’s “schizophrenic” drawings of hands – “McClanahands,” as he calls them. Ed created the drawings in the 1960s – a time that was also fraught with turbulence and with new ways of thinking, as writer Celeste Lewis so presciently points out in the profile on the author.
I’m honored to highlight one of the hardest working bands in Lexington, Magnolia Boulevard, as they await word on whether their upcoming shows – some of the biggest in their young careers – will go on. I’m proud to shine a light on local florist and small business owner Stephen Hein, who has worked diligently to build a beloved and respected business over the past 33 years, one that his loyal clients have leaned on in countless times of joy and sadness, to express congratulations, beauty, sympathy and love.
I always look forward to promoting upcoming home & garden events in April, and we opted, during a time when we’re all looking forward to springtime, sunshine, growth and rebirth as much as ever before, to keep our annual “Home & Garden Events” preview intact as much as possible, despite uncertainty about how many of these events will proceed as we have them listed.
Our magazine tells the story of a living Lexington: people growing businesses, creating new expression and enjoying and supporting each other. Telling that story during a worldwide pandemic – a time when the nature of our lives is changing at a dizzying, day-by-day pace – feels a bit eerie. If some of our content feels odd and outdated by the time you read it, I sincerely hope that it’s this letter – that the light at the end of this strange tunnel is beaming through brightly, that the path to the other side is more clearly illuminated than it is today.
In the meantime, please take the contents in this magazine delicately, keeping in mind the potential changing nature of some of the subjects we are covering. Please go above and beyond to find ways to support your local businesses during this time, as your means allow. Please stay confined as much as you possibly can, while our healthcare system strives to catch up with treatment options.
Please check in on your neighbors and friends, and do all that you can to stay well and to help others stay well.
Sincerely,
Saraya Brewer, editor for Chevy Chaser Magazine and Southsider Magazine