11.20.09
From the ferry: 11/19/09
It’s one of those nights when I am at capacity. How to let go of learning that a man in our group was sentenced to life–life–at the age of sixteen. What do you have to do to receive a sentence like that? I feel like I can imagine the answers, and still I think…life, sixteen, forever behind bars. Raised then, in essence, by the prison system. I can’t find peace with that sort of justice system. And yet, I imagine, the crime and the victims and I wonder if they feel like life is long enough? How can we ever bring two sides of a crime together? Should we? What choice do we have? This same man is now working with juvenile offenders, he tells us. Trying to help them stay out of prison, avoid his fate. I don’t know what else to do but pray that they listen. LISTEN. There are too many lifers in our group. Too many lives wasted. These men have served their time–forgive me any controversy that statement may cause for some. But they are doing us, society, the free world as they call it, no good behind bars. A man with a seventh grade education is one of the best writers in the class. He tells me tonight that he taught himself spanish and now works as an interpreter inside the prison. In the darkest place these men find a way to give something of themselves, to make something of a life that is so restricted you actually can’t imagine it unless you go there, meet them, listen.
We are letting lives go to waste. I understand the want for punishment, retribution. I get the pain of the victims. I grasp the idea to contain violence. I know it’s complex, so very, very complex. But I’m telling you, some of the lives in there are simply being wasted.
Small things tonight, like the men made sure we had hot water and brought us tea.
Small things tonight like the man who said on the first day of class that he was only there to pass the time, has started writing.
Small things tonight like S-, a lifer and gentle soul from the south, telling me that he is grateful this time of year that he has gotten to know us. And if he had one wish for me for Thanksgiving it would be that I gain a pound. What woman wouldn’t want to hear that–inmate or not?
Small things like thinking these men look to me with my MFA and think I know something, when every time I am up there it is they who teach me.
10.22.09
10/22/09: From the ferry
My commute to and from the prison includes a twenty minute ferry crossing plus however long I get to sit in line to wait to board. It’s a good time to reflect on the night at Monroe, to record first impressions and document those moments that are resonating with me the most before I have a chance to filter them or make them academic. I’ll post these thoughts from the ferry each time I go to Monroe.
I have a dark sense of humor. I always have. It has something to do with growing up with a doctor for a father, I think (we blame our parents for everything, right–so why not this as well?). Our dinner time conversations were often not like my friends’ dinner conversations. Early on I learned that human beings and their bodies are darkly humorous. At least you have to find a way laugh, otherwise it is often all just so terribly tragic. Sometimes my “darkness” surprises those who generally see me as an accommodating, motivating person.
But at the prison tonight, I discovered there is a dark sense of humor that even tops mine.
We had a great group. Everyone did their homework. Everyone is starting to flush out solid stories to work on. Everyone took notes when we started to teach a bit on opening scenes (as a teacher, I’m learning, there’s nothing I love more than watching a student write down something I’ve said–narcissistic? Perhaps. But it’s reassuring to think that I might have actually said something worth noting on paper.) At the end of our time I walked the hall back toward the front desk with Gloria and thought about how I’m settling into this new setting, these new guys.
And then, while waiting for the guys to finish movement (movement = the ten minutes the inmates have to move from programs back to their cells or units) so we could “safely” cross the yard and exit the prison, I saw it. A chalkboard hanging on the wall, which said: Welcome to WSR. Since we meet in the building where many volunteer programs are hosted I figured this “welcome” was meant for us volunteers, and I thought, well that’s nice. But then, in the corner of the board, written in relatively pretty, girly cursive, I saw the subheading: Come for a year, stay for a lifetime.
That’s not funny. Is it? I didn’t laugh. And I laughed when the kid in the backseat of the car in Pulp Fiction was accidentally shot by John Travolta (don’t judge me too harshly). All the way home I tried to find the humor in it, the dark, dark humor that I typically enjoy. Tried to imagine the custody officers and the inmates sharing a joke with one another about the reality of the situation. Tried to tell myself that it is always in the darkest of places that people must search the hardest to find a reason to laugh. But I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t laugh about the several men in our group who only refer to the length of time they’ve served as “I’ve been here a long time”. I couldn’t laugh about the man who said, “All my life I’ve been defined by my skin color or this place (prison).” I couldn’t laugh about the young kids who came in at eighteen and have known no other adult life then the one they have lived behind bars.
It’s not funny. A lifetime behind bars has no humor in it. And it surprised even me that I couldn’t get or take the joke.
10.02.09
From the ferry: 10/1/09
Face to Face
I was nervous to go back to the prison tonight. Nervous because of something I haven’t written about yet, but that has been heavy on my mind since our last visit, which was also our first visit with this new group of men.
There’s a man in our group who has been convicted of a terribly violent, brutal crime. Gloria recognized him immediately. I didn’t. And I debated whether or not to look him up on the internet (just his first name brings up all the hits you need). Additionally I debated about writing about it here. For two reasons, I think. One, I don’t want to sensationalize him or his presence in our group. I’m not excited to have a man of his criminal stature in our group. It makes things more difficult. So, I’m not trying to come across as bragging—look at me, I go into prison and work with the worst. That’s not it. Two, and the real reason I haven’t written about this until now, I don’t want to expose myself as having experienced any doubt about my ability to see past the crime to the human being that still exists underneath.
There, now I’m exposed.
I’ve been wondering if it would be better if I didn’t know his crime. If Gloria hadn’t told me, or if I hadn’t googled him? Perhaps this is the perfect example of a time it is better to be naïve than informed. Because I feel like knowing gets in the way of me being able to connect with him. But, perhaps that’s okay. Perhaps that’s a natural survival instinct, a survival skill, good intuition.
But I hate that. I hate not being able to connect. Feeling like I can’t seem him as fully human (is that the right way to say it?), as more monster than human. This is the first time this has ever happened to me at the prison. The men don’t typically scare me and their crimes don’t unnerve me. So why this man and this crime? I don’t know the answer to that question yet. I know a dear friend of mine sent me an email today that said, “those men [at the prison] need to be close to your soul. It will be good for them.” I thought in response, it might be true, but tonight I’m going up with my soul protected. Which is not how I like to be.
What I do know is that he is likeable enough. I can sit across the table from him and enjoy a moment of conversation, and then almost immediately I find myself thinking, I just laughed at something this man said—what does that say about me? Even in physical appearance he is not someone you would fear. You’d pass him on the street and probably not think twice about your personal safety. Yet he is capable, at least according to the courts, of being involved in the complete destruction of other human beings. As Gloria asked me tonight, how do we talk to a man like that about being a hero?
His presence in our group brings the experience of working on the inside to a whole new level for me. In sports speak I feel like these last two weeks have been gut check time for me. I found myself considering, for the first time ever, whether I could even go back. Maybe it is too much. Maybe I’ve found my limit. Maybe I’m not capable of keeping an open mind and heart about the potential for all men—even the worst. And if I can’t do that, do I even deserve to be there.
So I went back. To test myself. And I sat in the classroom, right across from him. I taught. I commented. I laughed. I shared bits and pieces about my own writing life and writing experience. And the truth is I felt safe. Aware of the complexities. Aware of the contradictions and the hypocrisies, but safe none the less. To be safe and in a space where you can test your limits, challenge your beliefs, question and revisit who you think you are on a gut level is an amazing experience. In the end, I’m not willing to give it up. Not for one man. Not for one crime.
09.18.09
From the ferry: 9/17/09
My commute to and from the prison includes a twenty minute ferry crossing plus however long I get to sit in line to wait to board. It’s a good time to reflect on the night at Monroe, to record first impressions and document those moments that are resonating with me the most before I have a chance to filter them or make them academic. I’ll post these thoughts from the ferry each time I go to Monroe.
The Reformatory
Back to the prison tonight. Not the same group of guys. Not even the same unit of the prison. We’ve moved to what is called the Washington State Reformatory (WSR). The Reformatory looks like it sounds. Tall, 1960’s – 70’s era buildings, that could be mistaken for university buildings or a museum. It sits up on the hill overlooking Monroe, with a sloping, manicured lawn that goes down the hill until you hit the bus barn for the Monroe schools and a soccer field where I could hear kids playing as we walked across the prison parking lot. Surreal, to say the least. On the lawn are two of the biggest, most stunning trees I’ve ever seen. One, a large cedar. The other, I couldn’t identify, but it has one of those wide trunks that begs for you to run up to it and see how far you can get your arms around it (which I didn’t do on account of the staffed and armed guard towers competing with the trees for tallest feature on the property). From the parking lot there isn’t a lot of barbed wire and fencing visible—like there was at TRU. So, it was almost disarming.
But once inside WSR you quickly understand—prison. Even more so than TRU. At WSR you go through three sets of doors—each one slides open, you step into the holding area, the door slides closed behind you, you wait, the next door slides open. Then there is the final door, which, once you are though it lets you out into the yard. Yes, the yard. The inmates were busy with a baseball game when we walked through, and to be clear they were in a fenced off area of the yard, so we didn’t actually have access to one another, but they certainly noticed us walking by and we certainly noticed them. Then we go through a metal turn style and make our way to our building and room. It’s intimidating. At TRU we never saw inmates until we were safely in our room. At WSR you feel as if you have stepped into their living space. Though at the same time it’s hard to know whose privacy feels the most invaded—if that’s even an appropriate expression.
Here’s the thing—to be a “good” volunteer, you feel compelled to act natural. To not look. Definitely don’t stare. But then to look away, so to speak, also feels unnatural. ‘Cause who am I kidding? I’m from the outside, walking through the heart of the inside. Isn’t it normal for both sides to be curious about the other? Add to that that this is the first, after going up to the prison for over a year, that I have ever felt nervous. Ever felt intimidated, even in the slightest. So, I’m left wondering, what does that mean? About me? About all I still have left to learn—about the prison, about myself, about being in the prison?
This is what I have missed while we have been away this summer, I must confess. The ways in which going inside challenges me. No where else must you so quickly and closely bump up against your fears, your stereotypes (the ones you’d like to deny you have, especially), your discomforts, you questions and your perceptions of self. It will take me several visits to get comfortable (for as much as that word can ever apply to prison) with being in this new facility, and over the course of those visits I expect to grow once again.
It’s good to be back.
05.24.09
From the ferry: 5/20/09
My commute to and from the prison includes a twenty minute ferry crossing plus however long I get to sit in line to wait to board. It’s a good time to reflect on the night at Monroe, to record first impressions and document those moments that are resonating with me the most before I have a chance to filter them or make them academic. I’ll post these thoughts from the ferry each time I go to Monroe.
A good night tonight at the prison. The guys were in a good mood. The guards were in a good mood. Pulling into the prison and stopping at the speaker that connects to the guard tower I was thanked me for volunteering after being asked if I had an firearms, explosives or pets in my car (no, I’m not particularly certain how pets fits into that list. I sometimes feel thrown back to childhood, watching Sesame Street when they do the skit, one of these things is not like the others, one of these things just doesn’t belong). It’s nice to be thanked. Our normal custody officer processed us through the first security point and got us all squared away with our form, ensuring we had the right box checked this time so we wouldn’t be hassled further down the line. And we weren’t. We were late getting in because, well, because they were serving filet o’ salmon for dinner. We didn’t get any further explanation, but apparently it was slowing up chow, which was slowing up the guys getting to where they needed to be, which means we had to wait to go into the prison. What can you do but shrug your shoulders and say, okay, filet o’ salmon, sure, I get it, we’ll wait?
We talked about the archetype of the threshold guardian tonight. A seemingly small character in the course of the hero’s journey until you really start talking about it. Threshold guardians are the people who stand in front of us as we are about to make great change or embark on a new journey and test our resolve to see it through. Are we sure we don’t want to stay where it’s comfortable, familiar and safe? Are we sure we are ready? Wouldn’t it be easier to not go? Parents, police officers and teachers all serve this role often. Sometimes out of love. Sometimes out of fear. Often with our “best interests at heart.” And yet, we must still push past them if we wan to continue on.
I learned tonight that one of my favorite guys in the group has been down for seventeen years now for attempted homicide on his girlfriend. Not necessarily an easy thing to learn. I hadn’t pegged him for being in for so long, though I had suspected his crime was violent, mostly because I didn’t sense that he was a sex offender. They are talking about releasing him to “work camp”, which is like a holding pen before being released and he’s afraid to go. I would be too if I had spent seventeen years on the inside. I asked him if he thought he was still a threat to this woman and he said no. I believe him. I don’t know if I buy the whole story about his crime. He says he wasn’t trying to kill her, but the truth is if he could have then that’s probably bad enough. I don’t like having to think of him this way. He’s a funny man. And smart. A damn fine writer whether he’s ready to believe it or not. My background in working with domestic violence victims made me wonder what his girlfriend’s version of events would be and the terror she must have gone through. I wondered what her life has been like these past seventeen years. I’m fascinated by getting this “other” side to the story, the perpetrators side, and yet somehow the story still feels incomplete, like I still have to fill in the why and how. Now I wish I could talk with his girlfriend. But maybe that wouldn’t even be enough. Maybe this is part of the reason I write at all—I want to understand what makes people do what they do inside of relationships. What turns love into violence? How thin is the line between the two? And why?
05.16.09
An overdue “from the ferry”
It is time to start making plans to go up to the prison again this coming Wednesday. How do two weeks go by so quickly? At this moment, I am sitting outside, taking in some much anticipated sun and thinking, maybe I need to lock myself away for a few days. Disconnect from the constant hum that is my life as of late and have time and space to think, time to reflect on my evenings at Monroe, time read more books on the prisoner experience and time to work on my own essays about working with the guys at Monroe. It all feels so important and yet seems so impossible to get to. Perhaps this is just the typical whining of a writer — there’s never enough time. Or perhaps once I graduate in July I can truly reorganize my writing priorities and make a real decision about where the work at Monroe falls on the list. Perhaps I just put too much pressure on myself to be able to be everywhere and do it all. It is hard when I have a heightened awareness of the gifts my freedom grants me to feel at times like I am squandering those gifts. I read the postings by Better Man and think — what hell am I bitching about? You want struggle, Erika? Get locked up for two years and then try to survive your release. It’s all perspective, I know. And my experience with cancer taught me that you can’t really compare one person’s life to another’s. It is what it is, and right now mine is full and I don’t feel like I have 100% to give to the guys in our group and I am sorry for that. The work remains no less important to me. It’s just that no one seems to be willing to figure out how to get any more hours into the day, and so I must recognize my limits. Which is maybe one of the lessons of working at the prison. Learn what you can’t do and focus on what you can do.
Our last visit to the prison was frustrating. Or at least, getting in. Suddenly, it seems, we have been filling out our entry paperwork wrong and the guard at the second security station, who checks us through almost every week and knows exactly where we are going, almost refused to let us in because we had not checked one little box. It’s maddening sometimes how the rules change. And sometimes, it’s not even a rule but a particular officer who wants something done differently and apparently thinks you were supposed to read his mind and know it. The trick is, much like the inmates, volunteers are one down, at least, on the power ladder at a prison. If you argue with an officer he can easily tell the community services director that your group has become a problem and just like that your entire program can come to an end. If you don’t fill out your paperwork right (never mind that you’ve been filling it out the same way for a year and a half and no one, including this guard, has ever said a thing) they can deny you entry for the night or send you back to start the security process all over and thus delay your group. As a volunteer you have to make nice. If an officer says you filled out your paperwork wrong, you apologize. It’s frustrating. No one likes to feel stripped of their power, not me and not the guys in our group.
Gloria and I tried to let it the incident rolls off our backs, but there’s no denying we were upset. We work to do everything by the book because we know how the game is played and we want to be certain we can continue run our group. But if I had been anywhere else but in the prison and someone had treated me like that guard treated us I would have been asking to speak to his supervisor. When I read Better Man’s April 14th post in which he writes about the lights of a cop car and the panic attack he experienced simply trying to help a woman get directions I think of our incident last time with that officer. And then I think about safety vs. power and I wonder how much we sacrifice in order to have safety, or at least the illusion of it. Do I believe the officer that night was just trying to do his job? Yes. Do I believe he might have just been having a shitty day? Yes. And I also believe that with great power comes great responsibility (who said that?) and all too often I see those with power forgetting that their first job is to serve, then to protect.
04.16.09
From the ferry: 4/15/09
My commute to and from the prison includes a twenty minute ferry crossing plus however long I get to sit in line to wait to board. It’s a good time to reflect on the night at Monroe, to record first impressions and document those moments that are resonating with me the most before I have a chance to filter them or make them academic. I’ll post these thoughts from the ferry each time I go to Monroe.
This was perhaps the first night that I didn’t want to go up to Monroe. I’m frustrated over the revision work to be done on one of my stories, feeling lost with it and all consumed by thinking about it. I’m tired. I felt as if I’d have nothing to give. How can I go up there and try to teach others how to write, even encourage them to write, when I am feeling inadequate and discouraged?
I went only because I said I’d be there. It’s important to the guys, to keeping their trust and their respect, that you are there when you say you’ll be there and I had said I’d be there.
One of the men started off the group by thanking us for coming. “It’s like a visit,” he said. “I really appreciate that you are here.” Visits mean everything to these guys. Brief hours of contact with family and friends. I know that when we are there it’s about so much more than the work on the page, but tonight it was particularly important that I be reminded.
And it turns out I can still teach even when I’m frustrated with my own writing. Perhaps I’m even a better teacher because at that moment I am one of them. I’m just a beginner all over again trying to figure it out. I have been humbled. I can teach, but I also know I have a long ways to go. I can speak about craft and at the same time try to hear my own words, try to teach myself along with them.
Tonight one of the other volunteers read two children’s stories. The guys loved it. I loved it. Like being back in first grade and having story time. We talked about the elements of the hero’s journey as they appeared in the stories, but truly, the best part was listening to the volunteer read and having her hold the book so that we could all see the pictures. Everyone needs a good story to be read to them every now and then. I’d forgotten that.
We’ve got a new guy. He can write.
It was different without M- there tonight. The guys don’t seem to want to talk about him much. Is it hard for them to think about those who are now on the outside? I imagine.
I’m still tired. I’m still weary from the difficulties with this story I have yet to get right. But I’m glad I went tonight. To be around other writers. To teach. To listen. To wonder. To get away from my desk and my computer and my brooding and just be present for a few hours with these men – exactly what I needed.
04.03.09
From the ferry: 4/1/09
My commute to and from the prison includes a twenty minute ferry crossing plus however long I get to sit in line to wait to board. It’s a good time to reflect on the night at Monroe, to record first impressions and document those moments that are resonating with me the most before I have a chance to filter them or make them academic. I’ll post these thoughts from the ferry each time I go to Monroe.
On Monday one of our group members will be released. So, tonight we said goodbye. It’s an interesting experience to goodbye in prison. To say, “we’ll miss you”, doesn’t seem quite right, even though it’s true. It’s not the same as saying goodbye to a coworker or a family member. You want the guys who deserve their release to be released, and yet in their release there is a loss, which you do not necessarily want to express as you do not want to come across as completely selfish. We are talking about getting out of prison. There should be no wish for a man who has served his time to stay soley for my sake. Soley so I don’t have to say goodbye.
You want to be excited for him, for the opportunities before him. You are nervous for him. Survival on the outside is tough, to say the least, for these guys. I realize I’ll miss him. This particular guy has been a great group member. He’s a good writer. He’s smart and funny and the other guys in the group respect him. It’ll be a different group without him.
Nonetheless, we all said our goodbyes. Several of the guys reminded him of what they’ve learned in our group. That one attribute of a hero is that a hero never gives up. A hero stays focused and keeps pushing. That’s what the group members reminded this man to do — never give up.
I had to wonder as well about the impact a release has on the guys who are staying behind. In his release, they see their own release date, no matter how far away it is. And, it must be hard to be left behind.
I realize that I won’t miss every guy who leaves our group. I probably won’t even feel good about some guys being released at all. But in this case, with this man, I will miss him. And I wish him the best. The possibility is high, I think, that he’ll make it on the outside. That won’t be the case for most. Here’s to hoping there’s such a thing as second chances. He deserves one.
03.20.09
From the ferry: 3/19/09
My commute to and from the prison includes a twenty minute ferry crossing plus however long I get to sit in line to wait to board. It’s a good time to reflect on the night at Monroe, to record first impressions and document those moments that are resonating with me the most before I have a chance to filter them or make them academic. I’ll post these thoughts from the ferry each time I go to Monroe.
My entries of late have been a little bleak, I fear. Or if not bleak then heavy-minded. Writing about prison certainly doesn’t always lend itself to lightness of any kind. But I do find myself wishing sometimes as I travel home that I had a better way of painting a picture of what it is like when I am actually there, at the prison, with the guys in our group. It’s not depressing. Sad sometimes. Sobering. But not depressing. We laugh a lot actually.
Tonight we had a band. I repeat, a band. Prison never ceases to surprise. In place of the anger management group that has been sharing the visitor’s room with us over the past couple of months, tonight one of the prisoner bands was setting up and sound-checking for a community performance tomorrow night. So, imagine, if you will, our group, trying to discuss the nature of writing, being a writer and what it is to be a hero accompanied by a bass player, a drummer and a lead singer, who could, actually, sing. I was torn between wanting to be with our group and wanting to go to the other side of the room and dance. The guy could sing. The band could play. I am always amazed at the amount of talent we’ve got locked away. Alas, I stayed with our group, but there were moments when I just had to shrug my shoulders at the men and we all had to take a break from conversation and just enjoy the music.
One of our group members gets out April 6th. I’ll miss him. The next group will be his last. I have work of his that he has given me permission to post here. I need to do that soon. He’s young and resilient and I still worry about what it will actually be like for him once we walks out those prison gates. I have not had to think too much about this fact of working on the inside yet – having to say goodbye.
Tonight Gloria asked the group what they thought it meant to be a writer. I feel like it’s a question to whihch even I need to give more thought.
02.05.09
From the ferry: 2/4/09
My commute to and from the prison includes a twenty minute ferry crossing plus however long I get to sit in line to wait to board. It’s a good time to reflect on the night at Monroe, to record first impressions and document those moments that are resonating with me the most before I have a chance to filter them or make them academic. I’ll post these thoughts from the ferry each time I go to Monroe.
Tonight we talked about resurrection, the stage of the hero’s journey when the hero is on the road back home, about to return to the ordinary world that he left so long ago (or perhaps not so long ago — not all journeys are long, right?). At this stage in the journey the hero must both shed the parts of himself that no longer fit who he has become AND he must figure out how to go back to a world to which he, in many ways, no longer belongs.
The guys get this stage. They understand going away and returning and not recognizing themselves amongst their surroundings. They understand having changed, having grown, havng left behind old selves, but returning to a world that does not understand the journey they were on. A world that does not understand the dangers the hero has faced. A world that was perhaps hoping that the hero hasn’t changed much at all. I know my fellow MFA students can relate to this. We go away to our residencies in Boston, ten intensive days of being writers surrounded by writers, and when we return who really knows what we have gone through? How can we describe it? Does anyone really want to listen? Most of us discover that the journey was personal. It was shared only by those who were there with us and not those we left behind and so we must set aside our ego and even our enthusiasm and return to “normal” life. But we are changed aren’t we. We are walking amongst “normal” but we are changed. Now imagine going away for years, to prison, and then returning. One man wrote tonight about lives that have passed while he was “down” (locked up) and lives that have begun. One man talked about realizing that upon his release this time he won’t be able to return home. He has changed that much. There is no going back — not if he wants to keep from going back to prison. He has to give up the dream of his family, the desire for reunification. His journey forces him to let go of his dream of having what he’s never been able to hold on to, nurture, care for and face a new reality of having to go his own way. He’s scared. Shitless. Wouldn’t we all be?
Don’t we go on journeys hoping to be celebrated upon our return? How often does that happen anymore? Not often. Instead we go on journeys and perhaps people barely notice our absence. Or they are confused, frustrated, even angry that we are no longer the person that they knew and loved before.
I think about my journey with cancer. Am I just now in the stage of resurrecting a new life out of that whole experience? I think so. It can take a long time. I’ve been “down” for a year and a half and I’m well on my road back, but not everyone recognizes me and many who once knew me don’t know me anymore. So there is loss. There is grief. But at the same time there is rebirth. It’s a messy stage. A messy, beautiful stage. And if you can just keep from jumping off the path altogether (which is really impossible I think, if you are true to the journey — how can you deny that you have changed) then there is a new life, amongst the old life, to be created.
My therapist says, you can’t always expect folks to show up and give you a parade every time you make a significant change in your life. People may not cheer when you return. But you know. You know where you have been and what it has meant and you just have to hold on to that. Hold on tight.
