The Cliffs

by J. Courtney Sullivan

I thought of the women who came alone to Sabbathday Lake, covered in bruises, intent on escaping such circumstances. And the widows who had been left destitute. A sense I had long before I could put it into words: that men were a danger to women. That women must find or build spaces of our own in order to be safe. The Shakers promised respite. Stability. Peace. Nonjudgment. Standing there in a hat shop in Portland, I felt intensely proud of the Shakers, as if they were still mine to be proud of. I thought of the true kindness I had known all my life.

perfectly describes the experience of being a women

In every graveyard in every town in all the world, there lie buried stories more remarkable and strange than a name, a date, a designation on stone could ever in a million years convey.