Year: 2017

Twitter’s Echo Chamber

B. Janine Morison

I began tweeting my dislike for the president and even made a few replies to his public tweets. One tweet, in particular, annoyed me. He took a meeting and wanted us to pat him on the back. One meeting? Obama probably had 2-5 meetings every day he was in the White House. Trump needed a pat on the back for one meeting. It was laughable at best. I got over a thousand people liking my rebuttal tweet to Trump. It felt good to be noticed, but then I felt a little narcissistic for being pleased with the response. I hadn’t written anything newsworthy, but I got a lot of pats on the back. I had to tell myself step back and look at the big picture.

The Time I Tried Botox

Stephanie Harper

I think of all the women I admire most in my life, the ones who smile to expose years of laughter at the corners of their eyes or the sides of their mouths and I find so much beauty in that. So much grace in the lines of their foreheads, or the way a strong neck can still look so ready to shoulder so many burdens, even as the skin has begun to thin and sag just the slightest. There is something exquisite in the thin wisps of silver in my mother’s hair. The strands are so clearly defined, I can almost count them individually, as though I know how she earned every one.

Getting To NO

Janette Shipston Chan

I stared up at the drifting clouds remembering that sticky-hot cloudless day, steaming asphalt, the girl in the on her bike, screaming, cheering, my two-dollar bill waving outside the car window, skip-hop running, a marathon every day …never quitting, never stopping…only being stopped by the scariest word in the dictionary. I needed a word like that.