Encircled

Na'ama Yehuda Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: , , , , , , , ,

She set the biggest log in the center, then added odds and ends of driftwood to encircle it. The seagulls kept watch. Perhaps accusatory of her use of feathers.

“I’m sorry if it is one of your cousins,” she said.

A gull called. Her apology accepted?

She sat herself amidst the constellation, snuggled closer to the angel log, and drew her knees up to her chest.

“Sometimes a woman needs a circle of protection,” grandmother once said, a black eye contradicting or warning against errant timing.

“I am encircled,” she breathed into her knees. Her swollen eye throbbed.

***

For Rochelle’s Friday Fictioneers

Photo prompt: Lisa Fox

61 thoughts on “Encircled”

    • I think the grandmother was in a domestic violence situation, and in her way tried to warn her granddaughter about it, while also perhaps not really having much in the way of knowing an actual way out of it … And then the granddaughter, in her own domestic violence reality, tried to find a circle of safety on the beach, even if after the fact. I don’t think the grandmother ever found real safety, but I hope the granddaughter would. Enough. Is. Enough.

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      • OK. I had a feeling it was that. And that’s how it goes on and on – because the previous sufferers don’t know how to get out of it or properly warn and protect. Enough is MORE than enough.

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      • Totally, and too many men are working to make it so that women will have to battle alone and in secrecy for much longer and far harder, and to undo whatever gains in safety women had managed to cobble together over decades of hard work. UGH.

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      • Absolutely! It is hard for me to wrap my mind around how the Supreme Court of the US just went and undid decades of progress, and doomed women and girls in most of the US, in one fell swoop, to loss of bodily autonomy and grave risk to their lives, healthcare access, and freedom; all in the name of control and domination of women by others who believe they ought to decide FOR them.

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      • Alas, I think the US has always been an aspiration for what its better self can be, in battle with the seeking of power and domination by those who care less about the Constitution and it’s intention, and only care about their own pockets and ability to control others. There were times the US did better in taking steps toward living according to its constitution, and there were time (too many times) when it failed miserably. Now is a time when the whole experiment of democracy in the US is on the ballot. Perhaps this is the biggest worry and disappointment – that so many in the US seem content to follow tyranny and delight in demeaning others, and shrug at the possibility, the promise even, of dismantling the constitution to appease an ego.

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      • It is indeed worrisome.
        And your whole election system is completely insane. It should not last months and months and months. It would cut down on how long each candidate can try to destroy the other. So not a democratic way to go. And I am stunned by how many are joining in on this hate culture. So many people are so angry.

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      • I agree 10000%! The election should be one person, one vote. Do away with the Electoral College (which originated in racism, anyway), and limit the amount of $$ and time on TV every candidate has. Limit the length of the election period. And require fact checking and accountability on all election ads. To name a few. It is a totally bonkers system, and it is exploited by those who care naught for America or its constitution or its elections, for that matter.

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      • Absolutely. And honestly… would you get a third party, already? Things need to change.
        Plus all those other things you mention. That Electoral College thing is ridiculous.

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  4. p.s. boots on the ground police, who write the police reports, the prosecutors who decide if and what to prosecute, and judges, who decide the accountability, are key players in the DV arena. Mostly men for so long, but slowly that is changing.

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    • Yes. Yes. Yes. All of those, and the lawmakers who all too often drag their feet when it comes to enacting and enforcing laws that protect women (not to mention how, sadly, there are those who REFUSE to pass or reaffirm existing laws that protect women and girls from violence and its consequences). We humans have a lot of work to do, and in the US especially of late.

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      • Na’ama, much of the time laws *are* on the books. It’s a matter of “discretion” and enforcement. If police don’t write a report it never happened. If prosecutor decides not to charge, there is no crime. If judge doesn’t get appropriate consequences, people die.

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      • Indeed. I just posted on FB a terrible story by PBS NewsHour of a child from Florida who was not only not believed by police when she reported sexual abuse by her adoptive parent, but who ended up being charged for lying to police, jailed, and made to write apology letters to her perpetrator. Even after she had managed to prove herself right (when the perpetrator abused her again!), the sheriff’s office refused – to this day – to comment or make an apology for her abominable mistreatment by their department (and who knows how many more children who were not only dismissed, but were actually prosecuted as the guilty ones). Here’s the link for those interested.

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    • Thank you, Rochelle. Sometimes hitting rock bottom comes only after one-too-many-a-fall, and I hope, for her, that she will find a circle of security that will protect her from any future black eyes. It is often incredibly difficult to recognize the dysfunction one grew up in, and was normalized to. I hope, for her sake, and for the sake of her children and grandchildren, that she will find people who would not lift a hand to her, and teach herself and those she loves, how to recognize the signs of an abuser and how to not tolerate or excuse or minimize violence. Too many are hurt, still, every day, by the hands of those who distort love into control by domination, intimidation, and violence. That is never love. It is possession.

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  8. The legacy of this woman is so painful, but you have written a story that tells it so well.
    I’m in agreement with your and Dale’s comment string. Hard days are ahead for the US, when pure lies are broadcast as truth and people can’t tell the difference because they enjoy the energy of hyped up rhetoric.

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    • Alas, indeed, Clare. I wish it were different times. All we can do, it seems, is our best: keep awake, keep alert, do our best, raise our voice, keep forcefully peaceful, vote, speak truth, share facts, find joy, remember hope.

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