November 29, 2023

inner resources

Welcome friends to Meditations in Blue, a serial memoir project documenting my time incarcerated and return to community through journal entries, poetry, essays, and art.

You are welcome to join the story at any point as it unfolds, but if you’d like to begin at the beginning, I have written an introduction here and the first journal entry begins on November 2, 2023.

Thank you so much for being here, bearing witness and building community for healing and transformation.

Additional commentary and reflections are included in the audio recordings

November 29, 2023

Deep Work

“By helping us to develop our inner resources and our outer community, the Work that Reconnects strengthens our capacity to face disturbing information and respond with unexpected resilience.”

-Joanna Macy, Active Hope

Naming My Concerns Exercise:

When I consider our world situation, some concerns I have include…

an attitude of selfishness, of “getting mine first,” that seems pervasive, the desire for immediate satisfaction that leads to compulsive and destructive consumerism, the “getting back to business as usual” attitude that leaves so much pain unaddressed and no real change made to protect vulnerable populations, and the intensifying of negative coping skills that lead to tragic deaths increasing exponentially. The increase in frequency and destruction of war and genocides around the world. The destruction of Mother Earth’s resources for immediate and short-term pleasure and convenience of western populations. The systems we have in place which restrict the flow of resources equally amongst all communities. I see such catastrophe and excruciating pain at every level of existence in our world. It boggles my mind when people say that things are fine as they are, that they aren’t so bad really, how do they not see it???

If we surrendered
to Earth's intelligence
we could rise up rooted, like trees.

-Rainier Maria Rilke

Where and how am I turning up for the Great Turning?

My decision to not shop fast fashion, minimalist (essentialist) lifestyle, to not drive and use public transportation when I can’t walk or bike somewhere, to try to be waste conscious, compost, and recycle appropriately, to garden/farm regeneratively and organically. To live in community and share resources.

What am I turning away from?

Single use products and packaging, extensive travel that uses fossil fuel resources, cheaper “quick fix” solutions, having my own space (choosing shared space and resources to reduce footprint)

What am I turning towards?

Intentional community, shared resources, thriving local community, caring and tending Mother Earth and all her creatures.

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I got a really decent night’s sleep last night and that feels like a nice treat. There’s a new girl in and she and Jess are hitting it off— which means it’s loud and catty here a lot when the two of them are together. Listening to them makes me even more grateful for Monny and anxious a bit for when she leaves and who I’ll get bunked with next. Okay, everyone us back in their rooms from breakfast and it feels like it is now time to reset from the time we were all out together. It’s hard to have that be the way the day starts but I’m grateful I get this space after at least to decompress from that energy spike and try to do a reset on myself for the rest of the day.

My cycle is almost over already, only two days of bleeding heavy this time— the stress must be affecting me.

Monny was sharing that the women were gossiping about me again, either that I haven’t talked about my charges or that I did talk about them in class. Today will be my first time seeing the women from general population since AA last week and it will be interesting to see how they treat me. I need to work on Jules’ letter to the judge for her. I think I will tell her I will have it ready for her on Monday and give myself the weekend to work on it.

This morning I am going to ask at shift change if I can be let out for my visit and hopefully then I won’t miss getting to see MC again. Or maybe today will be a day that O’Neal is here and in the bubble. He always checks the calendar when he’s on shift and if he sees I have a visit he will buzz me out without me having to ask. But I need to get better at speaking up for myself with the rest of the deputies— well just in general in life really. Deep sighs— just nine more months before I can return to my real world where holding excruciating pain is all I have to focus on. To return to simply my grief and let this drama leave behind me.

MC sent the surya namaskar mantra yesterday and I’m looking forward to beginning to practice with that. It will be a learning curve to memorize them so that I can have a flow in the movements versus stopping to each time to read the page. It will be interesting to see how long it takes me to remember them from the heart and not just the page any longer.

Just be me. Remember where I am going. Shraddha. Live shraddha. Be shraddha. Build shraddha.

I’m glad that Monny is seeming to get so much out of the book that Shelley sent and having her talk about it makes me really eager to start reading it myself too. I think it will really help me stay grounded and navigate this space while I am here. I might have Shelley reach out directly to the chaplain about sending more copies of “We’re All Doing Time” to be able to distribute directly to others, versus them coming through me and getting stuck in limbo as I’ve “received too many books already.” I think the chaplain is getting irritated with so many books being sent to me with so little storage room in his office. Or maybe the yoga teacher would be a good connection for this? There has to be a way to get more of the books in here without me needing to be the funnel point.

Surya Namaskar Count with Mantra: 35

Another day almost done. I gave Jules her letter to the judge, so that is done and I’ve done what I said I would do. Most of the women were stand-off’ish at yoga and Breakout class today and that was okay. We had yoga class again and it was interesting to talk with Monny about her experience with the class after she has been reading “We’re All Doing Time,” which talks quite a bit about yoga and meditation practices. She shared that she actually did the postures in class today because she was interested in them after reading the book and I was glad to hear that. We talked in the past about it can be challenging when we first start doing the postures and it hurts and our bodies won’t move in certain ways. She asked me if it gets easier and I was really happy to be able to say that yes, that when I’ve been able to be consistent with my practice, I can notice a significant shift in how my body moves and my flexibility.

I heard back from CATS therapist that I won’t be getting seen until next week turns out, so I’m really glad I messaged to ask. And that I’m in a much better headspace than I was at the beginning of the week and feel more comfortable having a longer break between sessions than before when I was spiraling so bad. I am still thinking of not going to AA anymore, or any of the groups really, other than the one that is court mandated and yoga. That just seemed to open up a can of emotional baggage that I didn’t have the resources here to support myself with and unlike AA meetings outside of here, what is shared in meetings is definitely not kept private. I don’t feel comfortable sharing in that environment now after what the experience was like on Monday and a part of me thinks it’s best to stay back and spend that time doing my own work. I have the Big Book now and I have social connection with my visits with friends from home and phone calls and messages.

I forgot to call Julie on my out time today but just saw a message from her that everything went great today!! I’m so excited and happy for her! Even her message felt lighter and so much more energetic than the last few times I’ve gotten to talk with her. And it sounds like she’s making plans to go stay in San Diego and be able to connect with one of her son’s good friends for the trip and while she’s there. It’s like having Tyler with her in some way, it’s not the same, but it feels special that he’ll be along with her in this way. Tomorrow morning when I have the chance, I’ll reply to her message, but it was so wonderful to hear her good news tonight!! It’s so good to hear something positive, we both needed that.

Shannon wasn’t on for our visit tonight and I’m hoping she’s okay— I try to coax my mind off the edge of thinking the worst. She might have gotten stuck at work again like last night or maybe something came up. I’ll try to send a message tonight if I can get a tablet to check in on her. I keep thinking I have a visit tomorrow morning at 9:15 a.m. but I can’t think of who that is with since MC will be working— oh wait, that is MC but not until Friday.

I am weirdly wired, but tired. I don’t want to rest now because I want to try and get a decent night’s sleep— today was so much better after getting sleep last night. The news from Julie just zinged me full of energy.

I’m remembering when I got sent to inpatient and one of the things that Courtney (my personal therapist) told me was to keep to myself and not go to the group sessions. This is feeling similar here. And now that things are set up for me to connect regularly with friends from home, I feel even less need to go to the groups. I’ll always have the interactions with my bunkie and the other women on the cell block and that is enough.

I told Monny tonight that I do drink coffee on the outside and she was so shocked it was hilarious. She makes me belly laugh sometimes with her reactions to things I say and it’s amazing that I can do that here— laugh.

My right leg was shaking so bad during the postures at yoga this afternoon and my hip flexors are screaming at me they are so tight. I’d like to improve the asana sequences I do other than the surya namaskar practice that has definitely been flagging recently. Also bring back study hours for myself to go deeper into the books I’m reading through the reflection exercises. Instead of going out on walkabout time, use that for an hour of study, yoga, shower and rest.

Ange is struggling with her math class for GED and asked for some help today. I was able to help a bit, but it’s been so long since I’ve done long division that my mind just couldn’t work through how to explain it well to her. When we get out, I’ll ask her to borrow some sheets to practice with tonight and then hopefully that will jog my memory and I can be more helpful tomorrow. I think if I am able to put it into the framework of entrepreneurship, for the business she wants to start, she’ll be able to see the value in learning these math skills and be more interested in the work.

I have to remember to not assume things as obvious; she is 54 and just learning basic algebra now. It makes me think of how she’s lived a life without these skills and how much more difficult the world is to navigate. I often take this for granted. So, I’ll do my best to help if I can, but the irony of me tutoring math is kind of hilarious.

That is the end of this day’s entry.

Thank you for being here with me, friends.

And until next time, much love.