Today is my 23rd birthday as a prisoner–the same number of birthdays I celebrated in freedom. I’m 46, deep into middle age and still locked in prison for the bad decisions I made in my early 20s. It’s strange…I hardly remember those decisions anymore. I know that I played a leading role in a scheme to sell cocaine, but so much time has passed since then that I don’t have many recollections about that brief phase of my life. All of my memories, even my dreams, have some relationship to my imprisonment.
Last night I dreamed that a professor from UC Berkeley bestowed me with a Ph.D. degree. He delivered the degree in a beautiful display case and, as I was walking away from the ceremony, I wondered how I was going to carry the degree back into prison. In my dream, prison (of course) was the subject of my academic work that led to the Ph.D.
The connection to UC Berkeley, I think, came from a newspaper article about the passing of John Irwin that my wife sent. John Irwin was a criminologist who earned his undergraduate from UCLA and his doctorate in sociology from UC Berkeley. John Irwin was well known because of his work, and because prior to beginning his university studies he served five years in prison for robbery.
As I was, John Irwin was in his early 20s when he broke the law and served time in prison. After his release, he studied at UCLA and found a mentor and the two worked together to publish some articles. When John completed his education, he published two books (The Felon and Prisons in Turmoil)–both of which earned him praise. He then built his career as a professor.
I read about John Irwin very early during my imprisonment, within the first six or seven years. His work inspired me–or, I should say his life inspired me. In reading about the career he built following a prison term, I felt hope that by educating myself I, too, could lead a life of contribution someday. I wrote to John Irwin a couple of times during the course of my imprisonment but he never responded. I’m sure he received many letters, not only from prisoners, but from leading citizens.
Unlike John Irwin, I didn’t rob anyone of anything. Although I don’t have much recollection of selling cocaine, that crime led to my becoming a prisoner, and living as a prisoner led to my becoming a man. I don’t know how many more birthdays I’ll serve in prison, but with 23 behind me I know that there won’t be many more.
This morning I ran 10 miles. I have tightness, like a knot, above my right calf, but I ran through the pain slowly. I followed my run with 400 pushups.
[Consecutive running log: 3,543 miles in 399 days]
[Pushups in 2010: 4,800]
Friday, 15 January 2010
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