Prison Journal: Day 8,052
August 26, 2009
I’m pleased to have finished Chapter 9 today, or at least a first draft of the chapter. I began writing at 1:51 this morning and by the time I finished for the day, I advanced the manuscript to page 420.
I’d like to begin outlining and writing chapter 10 in the morning. I can’t. This morning I had a long phone conversation with one of the attorneys who is working to help me. He asked that I provide him with some information that I’m going to have to write. I expect to spend eight to ten hours writing that content. That writing responsibility translates into my not being able to start chapter 10 until Friday.
I had a slower 10-mile run this morning, at a more normal pace that allowed me to finish the run in 87 minutes. My new distance total is 2,281 miles in 257 consecutive days.
Prison Journal: Day 8,041
August 15, 2009
I woke early this morning, at 1:07, invigorated after my wonderful visit with Carole yesterday. She looked radiant, and I can’t believe my good fortune to have married such a lovely woman while I still had so much time to serve in prison.
Carole brought some news from my friend Justin Paperny. Justin served a year with me here in Taft Camp, and we grew to be close friends during our time together. He transferred to a halfway house in Hollywood last May, and since July he has lived under strict restrictions of home confinement. Later this week, on 18 August, Justin concludes his prison and confinement obligation. He still must report to a probation officer for supervised release, but at least the prison system’s hold on him has come to an end.
Justin served his sentence with dignity, and worked exceptionally hard to use the time effectively. During the 12 months he served, Justin exercised daily, he read voraciously, and he wrote to document every day of his journey through a blog his mother, Tallie, maintained on his behalf. Besides all that, Justin wrote and published a book while he was at Taft Camp. The book is called Lessons from Prison, and it’s available through his web site at JustinPaperny.com.
Readers who may be new to the criminal justice system may want to contact Justin before they get too far into the process. Before he self-surrendered to Taft Camp, he made some decisions that cost him considerable amounts of money, and exposed himself to a longer term in prison. He is an example of a man who not only survived prison, but truly thrived through prison, as his accomplishments attest.
This morning I resumed my work on the Earning Freedom manuscript at 1:36, writing the first words for chapter eight. By the time I finished my writing day, I reached page 330 of the manuscript. I ran 10 miles in the morning, bringing my running tally to 2,178 miles over the past 246 days.
Prison Journal: Day 8,038
August 12, 2009
Yesterday I received a new pair or running shoes. I ordered the shoes last month, and I’ve been waiting patiently for the commissary here at Taft Camp to deliver them. In the higher-security prisons where I was held before 2003, the commissary kept shoes in stock. Here in the camp, we preorder from an institutional catalog selection, and the wait from the time of order to actual delivery is between four and six weeks. I appreciated these new, comfortable running shoes during my run this morning. I added 10 miles, boosting my distance to 2,155 over the past 243 consecutive days.
I look forward to living without all these limitation. I’m officially in my 23rd year now, and the length of time behind me really shrinks the time ahead. The change in my proximity to release inspires my thoughts, daydreams, and ambitions. It won’t be long. As I ran this morning, I felt certain that I would not serve three more Augusts. What steps can I take now to ensure that I make the best use of the time I have remaining to serve?
The first step is to complete my manuscript for Earning Freedom. I began writing this morning at 1:41. By noon, I finished the first draft of chapter seven, bringing the manuscript to page 323. Depending on what comes in the mail later this afternoon, I will either spend my early morning tomorrow beginning the draft of chapter eight, or I will edit chapters four and five. I’m still on track to finish this manuscript’s first draft before Halloween.
Once I complete this project, I will begin writing a new manuscript. I don’t know what I’ll write about, though I suspect it will relate to the prison experience in some way. Perhaps I’ll write the story of other prisoners, or offer more content for the Web site. I need to stay industrious, as productivity brings meaning to life. That was a lesson I learned from Viktor Frankl, a leader who used his strategy for coping through Hitler’s concentration camps as a teaching tool for others. Dr. Frankl’s book Man’s Search for Meaning was a great help to me earlier in my term, and I recommend it to others.
Prison Journal: Day 8,029
August 3, 2009
Carole and I expect my release will come in no more than three years. The Bureau of Prisons (BOP) has a schedule that shows my release from prison will come in August of 2013, but I become eligible for release on parole a bit sooner, and for halfway house placement sooner still. Once I’m out of prison, we begin the next phase of our lives, and we’re both taking our preparations very seriously.
My hopes are to build a career in writing, speaking, and teaching, so I’ll spend several hours each day working to advance that agenda. I am proud to have received a formal invitation to speak at Stanford University Law School once I’m free, and I’m actively looking to receive additional speaking invitations. Naturally, once I’m free this task will be easier, but even from prison I can take affirmative steps to ensure that when I am released, opportunities await me.
The big project I’m working on to prepare for release is my new manuscript, Earning Freedom. This morning I woke early and resumed writing on chapter six. By 5:40 am, I wrote through page 268, then I went outside to exercise. After completing my 10-mile run, I wrote through page 272. I may finish the first draft of this chapter tomorrow.
The manuscript motivates me, and I’ll keep working at it for as long as it takes to secure a publishing agreement. I ought to finish a draft of the entire story by October, though continued polishing may require many more drafts.
When I complete this manuscript, I intend to write a few more. My intentions are to leave prison with a considerable amount of content to launch my career. That’s why every day I serve is important, essential to my success.
My 10-mile run this morning boosted my tally to 2,072 miles over the past 234 days.
Prison Journal: Day 8,025
July 30, 2009
This morning I resumed my work on chapter six at 1:24 am. Sometimes the urge to write more wakes me, and I sit up in my rack. Why sleep more? I’m rested and motivated, so I hop down, gather my dictionary, pens, and envelopes stuffed with my previous writing, and walk to the room where I work.
When I opened the door this morning, another prisoner was sitting at the table reading. Whereas I was just beginning my day, he had not yet gone to sleep. Many prisoners spend their days sleeping, and watch television or play table games at night. The early mornings are my most productive, so I was glad when the other prisoner surrendered the table and room for me to work.
At 4:00 am, I watched as Walt, a friend of mine, carried his boxes up toward the control center and walked out the doors. After more than 12 years of prison, he was released to a halfway house. When he walked out, I was reminded of my other friend, Justin, who was released from Taft Prison Camp last May. It must be an extraordinary feeling to leave prison. I thought about the possibility for awhile, though the concept still seems surreal to me. I’ve got a few more years to serve, another 1,000 or so days. That reality put me back to work on my writing.
By the end of the day I advanced chapter six through page 258. Tomorrow morning, I will edit rather than write, but I’m still on track to finish this chapter next week.
I ran 10 miles this morning. My tally is now 2,039 miles over the past 230 consecutive days.
Prison Journal: Day 8,023
July 28, 2009
I’m grateful to have received a loving letter from my mother in today’s mail. These 22 years that I’ve served have been difficult on her, and I’m sensitive to her pain, to her feeling of separation from me, her only son. I’ve spent my entire sentence in various federal prisons, all of which were more than 1,000 miles away from her. We have not visited more than a dozen times in all these years, and telephone restrictions mean that we don’t talk. This separation of mothers and sons, of sisters and brothers, of husbands and wives isn’t normal. Yet after all these years, it’s the only life I know.
I’m sure that I’ll be released within four years, though I know release could come, theoretically, in three years or less. What will I return to? Others may not understand, but I truly feel alone in the world. I have Carole, my incredible wife whom I love with every breath, and who serves every day of this sentence with me voluntarily. Everyone else feels so far away, a lifetime away.
It won’t be long before I will have taken more breaths in prison than I took in freedom. That’s very strange, a distinction of questionable value, and one that I expect few other people can relate to. Oh well. These consequences follow the bad decisions I made during the recklessness of youth.
I spent several hours editing, reading, editing, and reading again. I’m very pleased with the improvements others helped me make to chapter two. I’m going to write tomorrow on chapter six, and likely return to editing on Thursday.
This morning I ran 10 miles. My tally is now 2,019 miles over the past 228 days. The health services department also renewed my allergy pills for 30 days.
Tuesday, 28 July 2009
Prison Journal: Day 8,011
July 16, 2009
I read an article in this week’s issue of Time magazine that described the important role community colleges play in helping people develop marketable skills. Here in Taft prison, the Taft Community College offers courses that can play a huge role in helping offenders emerge successfully. Unfortunately, few take advantage of the magnificent educational opportunity.
In mentoring my fellow prisoners, I’m continuously emphasizing the importance of earning both education credentials and the skills that those credentials should reflect. Prisoners at Taft who discipline themselves may earn associate’s degrees in business, liberal arts, accounting, or science. Courses in math, English, and more specialized vocational subjects can change their lives; it saddens me to see so few prisoners commit the program wholeheartedly.
Certainly, I understand the struggles my fellow prisoners go through. As Maslow wrote about in his hierarchy of needs, it’s difficult to focus on abstract concepts when basic needs go unmet. As prisoners, we all struggle with separation from those we love. It challenges us to focus on learning sentence structure, algebra, and lessons from history when we’re worrying about holding onto marriages, or when we’ll be able to speak with our children. Yet I try to pass along the message to my fellow prisoners that one way of showing our family members our love is by preparing ourselves to provide for them in meaningful ways when we’re home. Every minute wasted watching television or playing table games is a minute we could spend to develop our minds. That has been a strategy that has carried me through more than 8,000 days and nights in prisons of every security level.
Today I woke at 2:06 to resume work on the fourth chapter of my new manuscript. I’m now on page 174.
I ran 10 miles in the early morning, before temperatures soared up to 108 degrees. My running tally now stands at 1,913 miles over the past 216 consecutive days.
Prison Journal: Day 7,932
April 28, 2009
Michael and Carole Santos, April 2009
Many prisoners ask whether I’ll be faithful to my wife once my prison term ends. I don’t identify with the logic that leads them to ask me such questions. They assume that as a consequence of the decades I’ve served I would want to enjoy relationships with many women. When I respond that I will build and nurture a stronger, thriving relationship with Carole, they tell me that I’ll have to wait and see what the world is like when I get out. To me, such statements are ridiculous.
Living in and maturing through a long prison term has been like living on a planet separate from the Earth. I’ve been watching the world turn as I aged through my 20s, 30s, and 40s. During all of that time I’ve kept one vision in my head, which was how I wanted to emerge from this experience. Such a vision has led to the values by which I commit to living the rest of my life. The concept of fidelity is at the top of those values.
Falling in love is a simple act, but building a thriving marriage takes work and commitment. The other prisoners who tell me that I don’t know what it’s like in the world may be accurate in that I don’t know what they have experienced. But I do know that I love my wife and that I intend to measure every decision I make by the metric of whether it strengthens the thriving marriage I’m committed to building.
Carole and I have grown together through conditions that would challenge any relationship. Despite the hardship that comes as a part of imprisonment, we continuously grow closer as husband and wife, as partners, as friends. She inspires me to work harder, as I’m always striving to prove worthy of the love she gives. I pledge the rest of my life to her with love because she is the only woman with whom I want to share the good times that will accompany my release. It is not that I owe her my life because of what she has given to me through all these years. Rather, she is the central part of my life, the woman to whom I want to grow closer and with whom I want to experience the liberty that comes with my release. I choose to grow closer to Carole every day, to make deeper commitments to our marriage. When other prisoners insinuate that I will see the world differently upon my release, such suggestions seem as preposterous as statements that after all these years, I may make decisions that could return me to prison.
I do not have to experience freedom to know that I will live faithfully to Carole. I value my marriage and the relationship that I share with my wife. That certainty gives me clarity that I rely upon. All of my decisions begin with the end in mind, and in the end, I know that I will be with Carole, my wife and my love. That vision guides everything I say, everything I think, and everything I do. Those are the reasons I know that I will live as a faithful husband to Carole, and I will do so with enthusiasm.
Tuesday, 28 April 2009
Prison Journal: Day 7,852
February 7, 2009
This morning I woke at 2:30. By initiating projects to keep me busy, I have simultaneously trained myself to wake at an early hour without an alarm. The key to the discipline, I think, is living with a clear purpose. The prison housing units bustled with noise in the early evenings, though that noise did not interfere with me climbing onto my rack at an early hour. I read until six or just after. Then I pulled the beanie I wear when I sleep over my eyes, thanked God in prayer for the blessings I’ve received, and set a plan for what I would accomplish the following day. That exercise seemed sufficient to motivate me through these final years of any prison term.
I resumed my reading in the early morning, and sat at the table to write by 3:15. I finished three blog posts by 7:00. Then, I called Carole to wake her. She had planned on spending a few hours modifying the Prison News Blog site this morning and we had planned that I would give her a wake-up call. We spoke for two minutes, and then I went outside for my run.
I ran 10 miles in sunny, but cool temperatures. My total after the run was 519 miles in 57 straight days of running. After finishing, I walked to the library and I read Friday’s newspaper.
I nearly missed an appointment I had at health services. Since it was Saturday, I didn’t look at the call-out schedule; the document administrates post each day with instructions for inmate appointments. Had I not heard a page over the loudspeaker, I would have missed the appointment and exposed myself to a minor disciplinary sanction. I was a little late, but the nurse gave me a Tetanus shot in my left arm and dismissed me with an admonishment that I ought to watch the call-out sheet more closely. She was right.
In the afternoon I wrote a fourth blog post. Then I sat for an interview with Dan, a new inmate. We spoke about a commercial cleaning company he built and the challenges he faced. That conversation transitioned into the work I do with Carole. I spoke with Carole several times during the day, burning through too many of our phone minutes. At the end of the day I had only 210 minutes remaining for the month of February, which put us behind schedule.
![Reblog this post [with Zemanta]](http://img.zemanta.com/reblog_e.png?x-id=726d6b2f-4115-4972-a4be-62d4713a7cc0)
Subscribe
