“Go in Peace and Safety. Be Cozy.”

Many of the nicest things Kina says to us every day are delivered in the moments before she falls asleep, when her keen wit and fiery competitive instincts are tucking in for the night. It is in these waning minutes that Kina will tell us that we are her favorite parents in the world, that her mother has “good hair bangs”, or that she hopes I have a good dream about new Nicole Kidman stories. Kina delivered our top headline here just as Laurea built up a fortress of stuffies around her last night, draped in sycophants like a friendlier and less drooly Jabba the Hutt.

I don’t know where in particular “go in peace and safety” came from. It could be from any number of formal farewells, a generic assurance that you should not expect to be ambushed around the pass by the people whose village you’re leaving—or at least an expression of concern and support regarding any potential ambush by other villages. Thoughts and prayers. As Kina launched into her benediction, she placed her palms on our heads, as if to cast a spell of protection upon us from whatever monsters lurked in the shadows outside her bedroom.

“Be cozy” is probably not as common a send-off in nomadic cultures, but it lands well. There have been many periods in the history of civilization—this one included, sadly—in which safety feels like a stretch goal; a prayer for one’s safety can be asking a lot in the present millennium. But Kina takes the long view, reminding us that we are safe right now, in this house (or at least in her bedroom), among family, and that we must aim for higher peaks—to coziness itself.

We hope the same for you this week. Peace, safety, coziness. To whatever extent our prayers protect you and the ones you love, may they bring you solace and the promise of days more boring than those we’ve been living through. May you stay safe and in good health, and may that extend to all the people of this country and to all beings in the world. Most importantly, may you find a thick blanket and a downy cushion for your head; if you have a dog or cat around, may that animal curl up on your lap; and as you sit back with a book or six-part Neckflix British detective TV series, know that Kina wants this for you, and that as a devoted subscriber to her publication and worldview, you are permitted and urged to extend this same coziness to those around you.

Kina had originally intended to make today’s Parade about Elsa and her Frozen compatriots, and you can see that at the top of the cover, but she also stamped up an entire page of construction paper just after that, and Laurea took it upon herself to combine the two statements into a single vision. The publisher would like you all to know that she would have preferred it were Mommy not to have pasted all the stampings onto the Parade today, as it “ruined” the clarity of her initial idea. Critics love today’s cover, but it will go down as among our more controversial issues.

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