The room where I spend most of my time is bare. It has a concrete floor, concrete block walls, two windows that look out onto the center lawn of Taft prison camp. Every morning, just before 3:00, I sit at a round, Formica-topped table. I’m alone until I go outside to exercise at 6:00. I love the quiet solitude.
When I go outside to exercise, the sky is still dark and the morning air is cool. I wear gray sweats and a knit cap. Instead of radio headphones, I use Styrofoam earplugs. I used to enjoy the sound of gravel crunching beneath my steps, but now I prefer to block out the conversations, singing, and sounds of other runners (one prisoner even grunts). The time I spend on the track is sacred, a time for me to reflect on the progress I’m making toward my preparations for release.
I run 63 miles every week and I follow my daily run with hundreds of pushups and abdominal crunches. Exercise keeps me outside, alone with my thoughts, for 2 ½ hours. Then (most days) I return to the dormitory and more solitude.
Some people might find my schedule of solitude monotonous. I embrace it because the time being alone allows me to envision my life after prison. When I am writing or reading, I feel connected to society and distanced from the prison boundaries. This is a world that perpetuates failure, and to break the cycle I choose to separate from the common adjustment patterns that lead so many prisoners into peril.
A prisoner must develop an instinctual skill to read the environment. To emerge from prison successfully, a man must have the right attitude, awareness, and discipline. Every man must choose his own course, set his own goals that harmonize with his values. I need the solitude, especially now as I traverse the final phase of my journey.
This morning I ran 10 miles. I followed the run with 600 pushups.
[consecutive running log: 3,830 miles over the past 431 days]
[pushups in 2010: 17,200]
Tuesday, 16 February 2010
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