Trapped & Protected

Laura Earle is a little sprite who can't quite decide whether she wants to stay in my room or run around downstairs. Here she is at the front window, startled at seeing the outside world.

I was trying to think of what to say about this image, and in thinking back about female prison inmates, Silvia Baraldini came to mind. She was convicted in the 1980s of offenses that would have drawn ten years or less, if she'd had no left-wing politics. But this is the United States, so she got forty-three years.

In the early 1990s I heard about the horrific abuses she was suffering in maximum security prisons and I exchanged several letters with her. Then she was repatriated to her native Italy and I lost track of her. Now I'm happy to learn that Silvia was released in 2006 and had, since 2001, been in what sounds like a bearable house arrest with working hours outside. The international support she received eventually paid off!

I know that Silvia, as a free citizen of Rome, must be eating well. I also know that Laura Earle is asleep on my left foot. My right foot is cold!