At 2:38 this morning I woke and hopped down from my rack in the Taft prison camp. A few minutes later I was in the quiet room where I write early each morning. I have come to really depend on the quiet time alone. If I am not awake before 3:00 in the moning, I feel as if I have lost some of that time I value so much. Every minute of my time alone has meaning to me.
Today I used my time to write one journal entry, an article on the need for sponsorship, and a lengthy article for Q Magazine of England; the editor of that music magazine asked me to write about what Phil Spector could expect in prison.
If Phil can learn to live with solitude and isolation, he may pass through the term easier. After nearly 22 full years of imprisonment, I strive to create opportunities to be alone. I find the five hours in the early morning helpful. When I’m exercising, I steal another two hours. Although other people exercise outside at the same time as me, when I’m running or strength training I’m really alone with the elements and the sounds of my shoes hitting the crushed rocks of the track.
When I finish my run, I do my pushups alone or I return to the housing unit and shower. By then the unit has come alive and it’s not so easy to find the alone time. I sit in my cubicle and read. If the cacophony disturbs me, I tune into Rush Limbaugh and laugh at the sycophants who call into the hate radio prgoram. I get a real kick out of the people who begin their calls by saying what an honor and privilege it is to speak to the most well known hypocrite on the radio. Rush harps on the importance of conservative family values but has failed through divorce numerous times; he talks about how he loves the military despite his avoiding military service; he talks about self restraint despite his obesity, his dropping out of college, his tobacco use, and his history with abusing oxycontin. He is an articulate buffoon who entertains me with his invective.
When the officer releases the unit for chow, I return to the quit room and either write or read. By six each evening, I’m in my rack again, happy to have advanced another day closer to my life with Carole as a man rather than a prisoner.
Two years ago on this day I was locked in the SHU, the special housing unit at Lompoc. Administrators had charged me with using a word processor to write. Although I was eventually cleared of all wrongdoing thanks to help from Carole, I served 65 days in that locked cell. I didn’t mind. I am conditioned to the time alone. If I could have access to a comfortable writing table, a place to exercise more completely, and an ability to communicate with my extraordinary wife, I would prefer to serve my time alone. This is the conditioning prison has had on me, which differs from other prisoners that I’ve read about. Atul Gawande, the famous physician from Harvard who writes frequently for my favorite magazine, The New Yorker, published Hell Hole that describes very different experiences with solitude.
I ran 10 miles early this morning to beat the heat. My tally now stands at 1,159 miles over the past 131 days.
Wednesday, 22 April 2009
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