Preservation isn’t nostalgia. It’s connection

I’ve been spending these last few weeks with my 5-year-old nephew. I read him the books that once were mine, like “Eloise” and “Madeline,” the pages branded with my handwriting when I was his age: “Elia2” (which I was convinced was my name). He plays with the Piglet stuffy that once nestled in my bed. Meanwhile, I wear a flowery Kenzo jacket that is 50 years old and was my mother’s when she was in her 20s. My mother, in turn, wears the gold earrings that her mother gifted her, also 50 years ago, and reads my nephew the Brazilian “Turma da Mônica” comic strips from her childhood. We normally all live countries apart, but in these weeks, we get to pretend we live in an intergenerational household, time and space compressed.

It could just be a side effect of being in my mid-30s, but lately I find myself internally rebelling against the markers of “successful” modern life: living in the center of big cities, out on your own, far from what you once knew, affording the trendiest objects. Instead, I have an increasing desire to be among family, grounded somewhere closer to Earth. To hold on to things, rather than discard them and buy the brand new.

To put it another way, I am, like so many others, just trying to feel more connected. This “Preservation” issue follows the journey of going back to, and learning about, our roots, whether they be familial, ancestral or of the land. There are stories of inheritance, of the meaning we make when we commit to a family craft, whether that be making sunglasses or cutting hair. There are conversations about shepherding the stories of the artists and mentors who came before us, and on why vintage is getting more popular. And there are personal tales of reconciling the parts of ourselves that exist across borders and cultures.

It’s not about nostalgia or going backward or gravitating toward the old. It’s about living in a present that feels fuller, more alive and continuous, because whatever was in the past shapes our experience right now.