We all have our rough years, the ones we remember as wastes, or near wastes, or years in which, pressed pause, our lives bleed out before us, forcing us to reckon with the monumental mistakes of ourselves. I was deep in the midst of one of these years when I stumbled, awkwardly, into the idea of Libre. It was a seed at the time, and I picked it up, pocketing it for a later date. It was winter and things felt flat, but I traced the edges of the idea, imagining a font, a space on the web that cut through—with its chilly blue—through and through the miasmic emptiness of depression, cut into shape a space percolating free of stigma, cloaked with something adjacent to hope.

Hope is a small thing—but mighty, unsubtle, silvering in on itself, cellular, with its untapped locus of power. Libre was my battle-cry, and I wanted it to be others’ too. I have an image in my head of Joan of Arc. She’s slight, and the girlish curve of her cheek is visible under the too-big weight of a man’s helmet. Epicene face, calm and clear with a mouth meant for the fierce pucker of eternity. Her gait isn’t straight or strong, and at times her horse meanders, stopping at fresh cloves along the French countryside. There’s guidance, though, in her path, and there’s guidance too, in the sails of the Good Ship Libre.