b'Concerning Motherhood( 2024 ):An Autoethnographic Visual StoryOne year ago, I created an autoethnographic digital story for my final project in a graduate-level course. Though the assignment suggested speculating about how my life might look had I taken a different path in my past, I decided to dwell on a choice I was wrestling with in the present: the choice of motherhood. The20-minuteanimationshowsanillustrationdigitallydrawn onthescreen,whilemyrecordedvoicenarratesanddescribesthe thoughts, feelings, wishes, and fears about the possibility of not choosing motherhood. In total, 26 smaller images make up the larger composition, with words and quotes interspersed. Comprised of digitized photographs and manipulated/appropriated imagery, each expresses the internal and external voices speaking over me when I consider this life change. Some are full, such as my husband and I walking together in old age, while others are ambiguous, cropped to show only skin, hands, and feet. Boxes group similarities similar to a storyboard. Vines and flowers weave amongst them all.Figure 1. Concerning Motherhood (2024), image courtesy of the authorOverall, the work can be divided into three parts: the left depicts life as is (childfree), the right shows the possibility of motherhood, and the middle illustrates a figure meditating in various yoga poses. As a metaphorical scenario to bookend my story, the yoga scenes help create unity and a sense of movement through what would otherwise be a rambling stream of consciousness. To this end, I wove vignettes and ideas to seem like an internal conversation, all while in a fictionalized yoga studio class.The animation begins with me digitally drawn in the center of the screen, standing in tree pose. Here, I am trying to breathe and still my mind, but finding it impossible. As a result, my anxious brain spirals, eventually landing on motherhood. My narration continues to explore two possible worlds, two speculative futures, while occasionally snapping back to the yoga studio in the present. The story ends being at peace with the future and myself, whichever version that may be. Rather than picking one possibility, I embrace the present. My narration ends by expressing the validity of my fears and desires, finding a sense of peace and agency over the future. Visually, we find that I am at the end of my yoga practice: in childs pose, lying face down with hands Figure 2. Concerning Motherhood (detail), image courtesy of the author up and heart open. 50TRENDS 2025'