“Compassion for the Roads Not Taken”
The contributors to this issue were asked to respond to the question, “What was your road not taken?”
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The contributors to this issue were asked to respond to the question, “What was your road not taken?”
I felt much like Charlotte Lucas from the 2005 Pride & Prejudice film, when she cries, “I’m twenty-seven years old, I’ve no money and no prospects. I’m already a burden to my parents and I’m frightened.” I was truly living the meme.
This book has never been more urgent, timely, relevant, and needed.
I had absorbed clear messages at church as the second wave of the women’s movement swept the nation: a mother’s place was in the home. So, instead of becoming an English teacher, I cobbled together various part-time jobs…
The women I know cannot be contained.
I yearned for a more authentic version of myself. One that I had long-since neglected.
I can make visual representations of the labor that is normally invisible.
The issue of family size flummoxed me. I was simultaneously being taught that God had a plan for me — a specific glorious plan for how my whole life would turn out and that I must make
the correct choices at every step in order to have this glorious
life.
First Place Poet, “Road Not Taken” ContestQuiet trumpet of moonlight, soft gramophone of forest sun. Snow orchid. Phantom bloom. Ghost of a flower, no chlorophyll to green you. We lean in to smell your smell. Surprise: vanilla, like your common cousin. If wonder had a face, a name, would it be your petals that aren’t petals, but bracts, sheer and shimmery, even under fir trees’ shade. Lobed labellum. Yellow tongue. When a friend leads us to your growing place, we don’t know what we expected. Not this: someone’s backyard fence edging a trail of city greenery, your white flames in […]
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.