Selfishness

We all know the feeling: so many ideas, so many visions and so little time. If only I had more money. If only I had more time. If only, if only. I am in awe of this website and this magazine, which the time and effort and vision from people around the world has created. On a late night like tonight, I carve out a few more hours to work on the magazine. Between working 35 hours a week and a family with three children, I have come to do this website and magazine with the utmost efficiency during the late hours of the night. No moment can be wasted.

It is between two worlds that we slowly put the pieces together. Editor and Managing Editor, Alice and I, we communicate via google chat for the first time tonight. We cross borders and time-zones. We consult on the magazine, we share information about ourselves - we have worked together for months yet know very little about one another. I know that Alice has a keen eye and sharp language skills but I'm not sure what her voice sounds like. I learn about her via her blog and I have come to know her via her essays and column. And tonight, as we piece together a magazine, I realize how easy it is to bridge the expanse of our earth. To be here and there at the same time, even if only through our consciousnesses.

When morning comes, I'll feel a sense of guilt. The hours that each of us, each of you, has contributed to create something so special feels like a guilty pleasure to me. Do others share in the joy in this website and magazine creation, or is this simply the culmination of selfishness on my part? To read your essays, to learn about the world through your eyes and words brings me such joy, I wonder what I have done to deserve such wonderful luck. Where did all of you come from? How did we find each other? Why do you choose to share your thoughts? Do you also experience the sheer joy that I experience when knowing that we are all in this together, that our concerns are shared throughout the world?

I will head to bed now knowing that there is so much more to be done before the magazine will be ready. I have also failed to update so many things on the website, again. I'll have to put them off until tomorrow. I have faith that all of you will understand and forgive me for having let these things slide. You have probably noticed that this project is a labor of love more than anything?

In the end, I question myself: why do I do this? Why do you do this? Why do we read the words of others? Why do we long to know what they are doing, what they recommend, how they have gotten to where they are now? Do we fear that we are perhaps doing something wrong? Most of us lack parents who have already gone through raising multilingual and multicultural children, so we are on our own, so to speak. And even if we are fairly certain that what we are doing must be the right thing, there are still so many other elements that we would like to know, would like to examine, want to understand.

In the end it seems that a magic is performed whereby words and images and colors and text all coalesce into something we have decided to call a magazine. We know we had something to do with it but the parts are too numerous to calculate. Pieces are directed to where they belong and a thing of beauty is formed. One by one the pieces fit into their perfect order and when the last piece has been fitted, the magic begins.

Some of you may wonder where the magazine is this month. It is the 15th, right, so where is it? This month things are changing... we are becoming more mainstream. Expect a new magazine in two weeks, on the beginning of July. And if all goes well, then you will be able to print it out this time. No promises since one can never tell how much time one will have, but it is possible that all of the pieces will fit together and a few more hours in the middle of the night will have been carved out for creativity and creation.