Sunday Post

I'm not entirely sure what to write about this week. We had two really intense experiences, the first was the tour of the facilities, and the second was the beginnings of a really incredible conversation cut short. The tour was incredibly informative, incredibly uncomfortable at times, and at other times imbued with a sense of hope and almost relief that perhaps it isn’t as bad as we think. Yes there are many issues with the PIC in general, most notably for me, the lack of rehabilitation resources for substance abusers and mentally divergent individuals. Treatment yes, but not rehabilitation, and without rehabilitation, the recidivism rate will never drop.  However, the warden had an extensive knowledge of the interworkings not only of RCF but of the PIC, and she drew on experiences from her time at a men’s prison as well to relay information to us that allayed many of my fears and generated new ones. She knew the name of most prisoners that we passed, as well as the guards, and had a surprisingly extensive knowledge of rules and regulations surrounding trans identities in prisons. The presence of the Mombile, the acknowledgment that pregnant individuals who are substance abusers need extra care because two lives are involved, and the acknowledgment that methadone is necessary for heroine addicts after detoxing, were all truly positive components of RCF. Yet most of these acknowledgments or functions, with the possible exception of the education and training that Momobile provides, are rendered potentially useless without proper rehabilitation. It truly seemed that the best was being done with the resources available, and it would take a complete overhauling of the system to attempt to reconcile the ideal with the reality, and sometimes I question if that’s even what we’re working towards.

 

But onto the class. Our class was unfortunately cut short because the tour took a lot of time out of it, but the passage we chose form Brothers and Keepers generated a conversation that I am truly grateful for. We chose the passage where John describes his mother’s dilemma of holding the two identities of her son, the man that is her son and the man that is a criminal. The group spoke of motherhood and the power of motherhood that can allow someone to hold two such warring identities, and the nourishment that mothers must provide not only for the goodness in a child, but for the ‘evil’, if you will, in a child as well. That recklessness that must be acknowledged and loved into goodness, instead of watered by isolation and malacknowledgment. And I can’t decide what is more difficult, holding two contradictory identities in one person, or then loving both of those identities. I have been asked many times to hold the identities of individuals that left me completely stumped. Wordless and confused and quite lost in a space I have attempted to navigate too many times. Some individuals in my life possessed identities that clashed less than others, but it seemed to be that those I was closest to, those whom I loved most deeply were those that asked me to make the greatest mental leaps in holding them, all of them, as one whole person. But perhaps it is because I love them more deeply, know them more fully, although I acknowledge full knowing can’t be had, that the identities they reveal to me seem so contradictory. What I have begun to see however, is that the things that I thought would cut my love down, weaken it and beat it into something small and insignificant has done just the opposite. People are not one or the other, they aren’t even both, they are this AND that. Just as we are ‘yes and’ people, the love I have for the individuals who have caused me to do mental somersaults through the navigation of their identities have only strengthened my love and reverence for them because they have allowed me to deepen my understanding of them. That being said, reaching this place has been no easy task. But I think it is a task worth taking on. And so I leave you with my silent reflection from the prison class, a reflection on holding two seemingly paradoxical identities and the toll it can take. But I believe the effort is worth it.

 

To hold two identities in your hands,

one so warm and soft,

the other icy and hard

like lead

weighing you down

drawing you to the bottom of the abyss with the shackled weight of this knowledge

sinking

down,

down,

d

o

w

n

dragging you with it

through deep waters

while that warmth, that soft

feathered light of love and history

buoys you towards the surface

towards the breaking of the waves

the sun soaked glitter of breath

and light

and calm.

And you, you are suspended

in the murky gradient

the shades of gloom touched both by light

and shadow

as you are pulled down and stretched up

and it is all you can do

to hold both these things together

so as not to rip you

in two