It began with one word. On my walk home, three more were added. A month later, I had a list of 30. Ironically, none of them made the cut.

As I searched for this edition's theme, I kept coming back to you: the readers. I wanted a word that felt expansive yet grounded, something that could hold countless stories and voices at once. A word that didn’t just define this magazine, but reflected the way we move through the world.

In the end, the theme found me.

One rainy November afternoon, my Managing Editor, Charlie, and I walked down our central highway (aka the second-floor hallway of the Communications Facility) to the newsroom, calling out the names of objects we passed like a rushed game of “I spy,” hoping a word would stick.

“Window. Door. Door. Thumbtack.” We laughed, a little aimlessly, a little desperately.

Then, printed on a flyer within a crowded bulletin board, we saw it. “What about language?” I said.

Minutes later, it was scribbled in large green letters across our newsroom whiteboard, stained with notes from past editions. From there, it poured out: every way the word could stretch, shift and take shape. We exchanged a look, both hesitant to say it out loud. Was this it?

Language is often treated as something that separates us. But what I hope you’ll come to understand from this edition is that language stretches far beyond the binary of spoken words that are or aren’t shared. It’s our history, our culture, our identity and source of connection — overlapping in ways far beyond the barriers and borders the world puts between us.

One of the most meaningful ideas that emerged from this edition is that we are not meant to speak just one language. We are meant to let in others’ perspectives and learn to live in translation.