Perspectives

I hide window cleaner from my husband and keep a private stash of useful things. But sometimes I lose my belongings without any assistance. One bitterly cold morning, my keys were safely inside the house—and I found myself taking shelter at a stranger’s funeral.

As I prepare for Florida and Iceland, anxiety insists on coming along. So I pack it first, zip it into its own neatly compressed cube, and make room for excitement, homesickness, family, wonder, and everything else the journey may hold.

Dolly Parton was sweet and sexy, plainspoken and bedazzled, deeply feminine and strong as a steel trap. Perhaps we loved her because she never asked us to choose which version was real. All of them were.

From girlhood onward, women learn that their bodies will be noticed, judged, compared, desired, criticized, and sometimes controlled. This essay explores the cultural expectations women absorb about beauty, sexuality, aging, safety, and bodily autonomy—and asks a larger question: who should hold authority over a woman’s body?

by Janet K. Nash, MSW, LISW-S, CCTP, C-IAYT, RYT500 Fifty years ago, Roe v. Wade solidified a woman’s Constitutional right to obtain a legal abortion. This week the Supreme Court completely shattered the principle of stare decisis—the legal doctrine that courts will adhere to precedent in making their decisions. In Latin, stare decisis means “to stand by things decided.” My question now becomes, “What other legal precedents will the Supreme Court overturn? And how can precede