No Reflection

November 13, 2021Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Current events, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Adversity, Ancestors, Family, Flash Fiction, Historical trauma, History, Micro-fiction, Mirror, Recognition, Weekend Writing Prompt 41 Comments

(Photo: Pixabay)

The full-length glass was bedecked in heavy gilded glory. A forest of paintings crowded around it, their layered oils glistening in the candlelight.

She stopped and stared back at the faces. Unsmiling figures in stiff postures clad in roiling silk and velvet cloths.

Perhaps they ought to have felt familiar. The line of jaw, the slant of brow, the coil of hair above a hooded eye. She had seen all those before. She could again. If she just let her eyes glide toward the mirror.

She would not.

Know them.

Her ancestors.

Her captors.

Both.

For Sammi’s Weekend Writing Prompt: Mirror in 95 words

Fraud Code

April 13, 2019Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Life and love, Muse and Flow, Reflections, Trauma and Development, Writing Tags: Charlatan, Childhood Adversity, Code, Creative writing, Fraud, Intuition, Life Lessons, Micro-fiction, Recognition, Siblings, Validation, Weekend Writing Prompt 9 Comments

Photo: Pixabay on Pexels.com

She caught her sister’s eye and an unspoken understanding passed between them.

They’d perfected their “Fraud Code” through years spent in the shadow of a charlatan, and it took nothing more than a gaze for them to signal – and validate to each other – recognition of ‘another one.’

Their childhoods’ costs aside, at least they could sniff out similar quacks from afar.

For the Weekly Writing Prompt: Charlatan in 61 words

I Know You!

February 4, 2017February 4, 2017Na'ama Yehuda Anecdotes of Life, Funnies, Quotes, Speech Language Pathology, Things Kids Say, Writing Tags: Birthday Parties, Funny, Movies, Nanny McPhee, Preschoolers, Recognition, The Daily Post, Things Kids Say, Things Moms Say, Too-much-Pizza 2 Comments

As told to me by Mom-of-Three-Under-Six:

“So there we were, on our way to what feels to me like the 100th birthday party of the school year, and possibly the real cause for childhood obesity driven by absolute overload of pizza, cupcakes, sweets and other junk food … (I’m almost — almost — considering serving celery sticks, kale-chips, and wheatgrass juice in my son’s upcoming birthday. What stops me is knowing he’ll need about a decade in therapy to deal with the untimely exodus of little feet and the almost guaranteed desert of future RSVPs to his parties …).

In any event, there we were, cranky baby squirmy in the carrier and the hand of a squirmy already-hyper-on-the-thought-of-sugar preschooler slipping in and out of mine. When we finally arrive, the door is opened by the somewhat stooped and Old-Country dressed grandma (or great-great-grand …) of the birthday boy.

My boy takes one look at her and announces, full lungs: ‘I know you! You are Nanny McPhee!!’

…

I think I need about a decade of therapy.”

nanny-mcphee