10.25.09
Know Thyself
Annual training today at the prison. I’ve heard the presentation three times now, and it doesn’t change much. Though the woman leading the training today, I thought, did so in a manner that was more true to reality, as well as more sanity and compassionate based than the others I’ve attended.
The first two trainings I attended seemed mostly to focus on scaring the shit out of volunteers. Maybe that’s a necessary step in the initiation process. First you fear them, then you understand how to work with them. It never worked like that for me. I don’t worry about the men manipulating me (though some of the trainers would say that’s a sign you are being manipulated). I don’t have irrational fears about the men finding me on the outside or asking their family or friends to find me. I don’t have nightmares about prison riots (though when they said today that our emergency contact would be the person they would call in case I a) had a heart attack while inside or 2) if a riot broke out — and I thought, crap, don’t call my mom if a riot breaks out!).
At these trainings manipulation by inmates is typically the topic we spend the most time on. Trainers go through a lengthy list of all the ways the men will try to manipulate us. First by befriending us. Second by being a star student, so as to garner our attention and admiration. Third by asking for favors. Fourth by asking to correspond with us outside of the program. And so on and so on. All of these things do, of course, happen. It can be difficult to know if an inmate is simply a good student or is in the process of trying to manipulate you. You never know, unless something obvious does happen (such as a request to call a family member and relay a message). Even if the obvious happens though, there’s a part of me that has always thought–can you blame these guys?
The prison culture is one of manipulation, power and control. That’s how you survive. It’s also how you entertain yourself in an extremely myopic universe. Their world on the inside is small. They have an abundant amount of time to think about what they want and how to get it. I never assume that any attempt to manipulate me is malicious or ill intended. I always assume this is how they have learned to survive (probably before they even arrived in prison). Which means it’s up to me to be clear about my boundaries.
Sometimes I think this issue of boundaries is part of my reason for working on the inside. I often struggle with boundaries on the outside. Saying yes to too many people. Rescuing friends and family in that way therapists always tell you not to do. Having too much empathy for people I barely even know. But on the inside I have no choice but to maintain boundaries of all kinds. It’s the professional way to run a program and to manage a classroom. Boundaries keep expectations and roles clear. I have to be able to say no at times, otherwise the guys would have me taking home entire novel manuscripts to read and critique and I don’t have that sort of time to offer. Boundaries let them know what I can do for them and what I can’t do for them. If I’m clear, then no one’s feelings get hurt, including my own. So far, it’s worked.
I’ve never wanted to rescue the men in prison. Maybe being a part of a program other than a religious group or AA makes that easier. I’m not out to redeem anyone’s soul, or forgive them their sins or cure of them of an addiction. I’m there to help them look at their life story and write it down. The work is their own and they can choose to do with our program what they will. Right now, for example, we have a guy who on the first night told us he was only there to watch (which basically means he’s trying to pass time, but isn’t all that interested. It’s happened before, we don’t mind). At the last meeting though (our third visit with this group) he was silent for almost the entire meeting and then, as another inmate discussed his story idea, this “silent” man was suddenly participating. Something had touched him and there he was giving feedback. We don’t make a big deal out of it in the group, but we certainly notice. It just works best to let them decide what they want from our program. While I hope that what they want is to re-examine their life and choices, putting them in a new context and thus experience some growth or enlightment about who they are (and can be) as human beings. I haven’t found it difficult to let go of any attachment I might have to that outcome for each of them. We are all a work in progress, right? And we are each on a journey. It’s not my job to rescue them from what they need to experience.
What I most appreciated about the trainer today was that she kept reminding us that manipulation is not a phenomenon unique to prison. People on the outside manipulate. None of the previous trainers ever pointed out this obvious fact, but in doing so she reminds us that inmates are human, using reliable survival skills that we all learn along the way. So, the message I took away today is, know yourself–both inside prison and outside. Know yourself and you will not compromise yourself or your program.
08.03.09
Endings and beginnings, part 2
Something ought to be said about moving our program to the Washington State Reformatory. Sometimes I think this move, more than anything else I might have written in the last posting, is the main reason I haven’t written here in so long. I do not like to write about goodbyes. Well, that is not true—my collection of short stories in fact titled, Leaving—so maybe it’s more that I’m tired of writing about goodbyes. Or maybe it is that I find this particular goodbye particularly difficult.
The last meeting we had with our group at TRU was to tell them we were thinking about moving the program after our short summer break. Our reasons for moving the program are valid enough. We’ve done a year of the program with the same group of men. Attendance is dropping as we cycle back through the material, and when a new guy does show up it is difficult to bring him into the fold when all of the other men are so far ahead. As program leaders we are growing anxious for new faces, new voices, new men to teach.
But regardless of the validity of any of our reasons, the simple fact is this: the men at TRU do not want us to go. And they told us as much. Remember, these men are nothing if not honest.
Even more difficult for me is now that we have made this decision there is no final meeting with the group at TRU. When we go back to Monroe in the fall we will begin our program at WSR. There is no final meeting with our original group of guys. No final goodbye. They simply won’t see our program advertised on their bulletin boards and they will know we are not coming back. It seems cruel to me. For there to be no real closure for any us.
The guys are used to this. Volunteers coming and going. Programs coming and going. Forming relationships with people from the outside and then never seeing them again. They are used to this, but I still am not. Maybe the longer I do this work, the easier it will get, these endings and beginnings on the inside. But for so many reasons I doubt it.
08.02.09
Endings and beginnings, part 1
I’ve been silent here on the blog for several weeks now. Not good for consistent readership, I know. Perhaps not even good for continuity, maintaining that “dream” that Gardner says is so essential to a well-told story. Yet, the pause I’ve taken here, reflects a pause I’ve taken in my life in general. In the language of the hero’s journey, I suppose I’m back again at the Threshold—between what was my ordinary world and what will become my new world. Ordinary being graduate school and all that came with it. New world being life after graduation. Ordinary being the work I’ve been doing with the guys in the Twin Rivers Unit at Monroe. New being the discussions about shifting our program over to the Washington State Reformatory (a different holding unit at Monroe) beginning in September. Ordinary being the guys I’ve gotten to know at TRU. New being the guys I will get to know at WSR. Ordinary being having the excuse of “homework” to bail out on dinner parties I didn’t want to attend, weekend activities I didn’t want to participate in, etc. New being how to hold onto the space I created for my writing time without the respected excuse of it being school work. Ordinary being always having a looming deadline to force me to my desk. New being having the responsibility of imposing my own deadlines.
Two weeks ago today, I graduated. I haven’t written much, telling myself it is okay to take a small vacation. But while I haven’t been writing, life has been quickly filling the hours I once spent at my desk and just like that I find myself having promised too much time to things other than writing, and now I’m struggling to take them back—those precious hours. I’m getting “twitchy”, as a writer friend of mine would say. That terrible state for a writer, when you want to write, but don’t write and then suddenly find yourself yelling at the checkout girl at the store, at your boyfriend, your mother or some random news anchor on the television for no reason other than you’re not writing and it’s driving you crazy.
Perhaps that’s the thing about being at the Threshold—where you are one foot in what was the ordinary world and one foot in what will be the new world—it’s a little maddening. The old rules don’t apply and the new rules haven’t been set yet. The old schedule that once worked, doesn’t fit with the new life, but the new schedule hasn’t been created. So, it’s limbo. A writer’s purgatory. Without being too overdramatic, I hope, I am the guy who has just been released from prison, trying to make it through his first day on the outside.
I told myself I’d take until my birthday in early September before I worried about getting back on a writing schedule. I’m not sure I can hold out that long. Not because I’m anal, or hard on myself, or incapable of resting, but because I’m incapable of not being a writer. Two intense years of school have not set me up to take a break from the writing, they’ve set me up to write. So I must. This is the first significant piece of writing I’ve done since graduating, and already I feel better reading over these words, watching the white space on the page fill.
