In an earthquake, you would not want to be seated on the northern wall of the Memphis Magazine conference room. The bookshelves there, weighted with the bound volumes of this magazine’s archives, sag helplessly, the wooden boards no match for so much paper. I sometimes sense that the archives are looking back at us — down at us — making notes, keeping score.
Fifty years: an eternity, and also a blink. For 50 years next month, this magazine has been adding to those shelves: with pages and stories, perspectives and photos, art and advertising. For a story you’ll find in this issue, I attempted to understand our history aesthetically, from the outside in: by considering our covers as an assemblage, or a quilt.
More than just covers, my colleagues and I have been spending time over the last several months thinking about the thematic threads that tie together all those sheets of paper. The thickest thread, of course, is the city itself: Memphis, the word atop every cover we’ve ever published, the obsession propelling every story we’ll ever write.
It’s funny: The more stories I’ve published in this magazine, the smaller I feel. Early on, publishing a real story in a real magazine seemed like a really big deal. I hoarded print copies; I entertained (but abandoned) the idea of clipping and gluesticking my pieces into a scrapbook. But then, as happens, we just kept publishing more magazines, and I kept writing, and the experience became more rhythmic than singular.
We’ve published more than 600 issues — each one demanding ideas, labor, and capital. Each one feeling like an accomplishment to the people who worked on it; each one arriving like an offering for the people curious enough to read it. Here we are, at your doorstep. Please pick us up and spend time with us. More than bombastic, I’ve come to see the experience as something deeply humble: What we want most from you is the simple gift of 20 minutes or an hour of your time, and we will wait patiently until you choose to open and look beyond our cover.
We’re mere stewards — stewards of an idea: that Memphis should have her own storytellers, her own collection of ideas and people and beauty and commerce and curiosities. Stewardship isn’t meant to last forever. Many of the people whose tenures at this magazine left the biggest imprints didn’t actually work here for very long. But they followed the campsite rule: They left the place better than they found it, allowing those of us here now to keep pressing forward, to keep looking for new stories to tell.
If you live in an older home, you know just what I mean. I grew up in a bungalow constructed in 1920; my husband and I now inhabit a four-square built around 1905. For me, those two structures are central containers of memory. For the houses themselves, I’m merely someone passing through. Someone trying to leave the place better than I found it.
I sort of think that our fractious, distanced society would work better if we tried to apply some notion of stewardship to more arenas. At the dog park we frequent, I’ve witnessed so many people do odd jobs not because they have to, and not because someone asked them to, and certainly not because they’re being paid. They just enjoy that the dog park is available to all, and want to keep it clean (or as clean as a dog park can be!) and welcoming. Several regulars walk around and pick up waste that others left behind. There are folks who reliably refill water jugs during the winter months, when the hoses are turned off. People bring bags when the supplies run low. They petition the city to add picnic tables, add lighting. Most of all, they watch out for each other. Sure, yes, not everyone is saintly. Sometimes disputes break out, and not among dogs, either. What I mostly witness, though, is good, faithful stewardship.
I hope to do those stacks of archives proud this year. I hope to leave this place just a little better than I found it — and then I hope whoever’s next sets to work fixing whatever we’ve left undone.
