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We wanted to make space in this issue to center friendship as an essential part of our lives.
The first time I met Stephanie, I was exercising. I was dripping sweat, my face flushed and red, when I heard a knock at the door. I paused my dance video to see a family standing on my porch. “We just moved in and heard you were in our ward!” the husband said.“Sorry, I’m really sweaty!” I said. “It’s good to meet you!” We exchanged phone numbers. I was mortified in the oversized t-shirt I’d thrown over my sports bra. Great first impression, I thought.The next day, Stephanie texted me. “My kids spilled milk and I’m worried the towels I […]
II. Remnants Leaves alight with flame from dying rays split by rocky silhouettes. Another world nestled amongst clouds, guided by a one-way road. Wind whips through our hair as unfamiliar music shouts and you laugh without reservation. I’m holding on to beautiful moments, Cupping them gently like water liable to leak away, Anticipating the physical presence fading, The warm, familiar body walking away Or growing cold eventually. I brace myself for being left With only my handful of memories. Take pictures, record voices. Cling to them desperately, quietly. One day, this is all that you will have left of these […]
The following is adapted from a Relief Society lesson.One of the best compliments I’ve ever gotten is, “I keep forgetting you have a husband.” I’ve trained my speech over years to use the first-person plural “we” only when strictly necessary, in part because I find it alarming how quickly individual identities become completely subsumed into a combined existence after marriage. “Our car is in the shop.” “We’re out of milk.”The other reason I don’t use “we” statements is that I find it’s an unnecessary conversational reminder that I’m lucky enough to have a life partner when so many others don’t. This […]
1. After We Spoke After we spoke, on the road to Canada, I remembered when we saw god in a cloud behind the east wall of Provo. That mountain god, visible but far. That god who will be best found in a grove of trees. The eager messenger forever Lifting a trumpet to Provo, on the temple where We all traveled, baffled, too long before sunrise, from the MTC. God visits sometimes from The cloud to say Hear Him who spun the mountain who framed the cloud who built the temple stone on stone who hired the angel and made […]
Puppies are agents of chaos, in a Manhattan apartment especially so.
Book Review of I Spoke to You with Silence: Essays from Queer Mormons of Marginalized Genders (edited by Kerry Spencer Pray, Jenn Lee Smith) As
What did we possibly have in common? How would we work together? Wouldn’t she be frustrated by my crazy-busy life? . . . I didn’t think she would be the friend I desperately needed. Yet, she was.
Book review of The Book of Mormon For the Least of These, Vol. 2 by Fatimah Salleh and Margaret Olsen Hemming I have taught the
Exponent II provides feminist forums for women and gender minorities across the Mormon spectrum to share their diverse life experiences in an atmosphere of trust and acceptance. Through these exchanges, we strive to create a community to better understand and support each other.