Sometimes you work months and years to perfect a story, only to have it published by a magazine or journal that closes up shop within a year of printing your piece. My essay “Preserved” was one such lost story. But thanks to Redux—a journal dedicated to keeping alive stories that have gone out of regular print circulation—my short documentary about heritage and its loss gets a second chance at life.

Preservation can mean finding something precious from someone else’s forgotten life, then saving it forever under glass. It can mean replacing a structure’s every crossbeam and post until nothing original remains but its idea. Preserving can save for some what others might see as a roadblock in the way of progress, and it can also be a way of saving jelly in a jar.

            Preservation can mean paying attention to your surroundings.

            Preservation can be an act of memory.

“Preserved” originally appeared as “Preservation with Clapboard Gaps” in the final issue of Salt.