In yesterday’s mail I received a package from Peggy, an English professor who has become a mentor to me. She teaches writing courses in a university, and although we’ve never met, I’m grateful for the many hours she invests to help me develop my writing craft. The suggestions she makes, I can tell, are helping me become a better, more confident writer.
Throughout my years of imprisonment I’ve been blessed with so many mentors, most of whom came from academia. If my fellow prisoners listen to me, I hope to convey to them the importance of cultivating mentors who can help them transcend the restrictions of confinement. I found mentors by writing unsolicited letters to people whom I hoped could help me, though I also found mentors through literature and others through interactions with prisoners who walked the same yards with me.
Early in my term, for example, I read two biographies that helped me. One was Man’s Search for Meaning by Viktor Frankl, and the other was The Autobiography of Malcolm X. Obviously, I haven’t met either of those men, but through their literature I learned strategies for growing through challenging circumstances. Because they taught me, I consider them both mentors.
Similarly, in the prisons where I’ve served many years, I always found other prisoners from whom I could learn. Those men had experienced the world, whereas I have been a prisoner all of my adult life. We frequently created symbiotic relationships, where I showed them strategies for growing through and making the most of confinement, while they gave me insights that would help my preparations for release.
At this stage, I really need the guidance I’m receiving from Peggy and my other writing mentors. They’re helping me tell this story of my imprisonment. Today I used Peggy’s suggestions to edit an earlier chapter, and tomorrow I will continue the editing process. I’m grateful to have this work to focus my energy on, and this guidance to help me improve.
I ran three miles this morning, boosting my tally to 2,042 miles over the past 231 days. Then I fell in love with my wife all over again, during one of the best visits we’ve ever shared.
Friday, 31 July 2009
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