JUST DOING TIME
I live in a world surrounded by people, who if you ask them what they are doing, they will say, ” just doing time”.
Over the years, I’ve come to understand that, for the most part, WE ARE WHAT WE DO WITH THE 24 HOURS WE HAVE EACH DAY.
Last week I found myself in a circle of folks on the rec yard, one of the girls aspires to be a rapper. I have heard her rap more than once and she has tons of potential but what she does all day is smoke K2, eat and sell synthetics.
Her actions today are not in line with her self- professed, goals for the future.
I took the opportunity to tell her that her actions every day dictate that she is a smoker, and a dealer, who talks about being a rapper. I laid it out for her that if she got up every morning and went out to the track and started to free her mind with each lap, getting her physical self ready for the performance end of her goals; then if she were to go in and spend time writing lyrics, practicing her trade, networking with other people in the music business, perhaps even taking some music classes at rec, she would be ACTIVELY PERSUING a career as a rapper. She could even say, she is a rapper.
I am an artist and all of the things I do are various ways in which I channel creativity.
Every day, I write. Sometimes I go back and read what I wrote in the past, and then I write some more.
I created a mentor program where there are now 100 mentors on our compound. I design the on going phases of the program and I am the director of the program. I have women whom I mentor daily. I am the gardener here and I am training my protege who will take over the position when I leave. I teach Pilates and yoga.
The truth is I am an artist, a writer, a director, a gardener, a teacher and a community builder, who happens to be doing a 30 year sentence in Federal Prison.
I can see far enough in the rear view mirror to remember how it was when my life began to unravel; the 2 years leading up to my arrest. Without going into too much detail, the part that is important is that when a person is falling to pieces, when their life is thrown so far off balance it’s like one of those old cartoons where you flip through and with each page, the scene becomes more out of control.
I quickly went from a professional who liked to party sometimes to a druggy who could still sometimes make it to work.
My biggest challenge of late, has been to help the women see that their lives are not suspended by this time.
My ultimate goal has been to build a community here, so community-like activities so we can get used to it, while it’s easy and we have fewer life distractions.
To emphasis the power of the 24 hours they have- while not getting off balance myself.
It’s easy for me, because I know the formula. Yoga, meditation, fresh air, distance from drama, focus on goals.
I sit and visualize myself dancing free forever.
The daily struggles of this quest are making me quite resilient and giving me some seriously strong people skills.
This is the month of October, DOMESTIC VIOLENCE MONTH. I am hyper-aware that one strongest cords of the ties that bind me was that which stemmed from DOMESTIC VIOLENCE.
In therapy, I was taught that you often cannot recall the rooms of the house in which trauma occurred. I have no memory of what the kitchen of my childhood looked like, nor the living room. This is where I blocked out the things that didn’t make sense to my sub-conscious mind- witnessing the two people I loved the most, depended on the most, in peril.
In my attempt to reason it out, I loved hard too. I had no coping skills, no boundaries, abandonment issues, major daddy issues
I wanted so bad to have a normal life, a normal home, peace, harmony.
And now I do- right here in Federal Prison- I have the best days ever, teaching the women here, how to heal and find peace and balance.
For the Domestic Violence Event, I am going to join forces with the colleges across America and we are going to have a
CLOTHESLINE PROJECT; but instead of t-shirts, we will use recycled things- tissue paper boxes cut to look like t-shirts.
Cut out words and pictures from magazines.
In an effort to bring awareness to the beauty of recycling ( no one knows what that is here- literally ) we are going to use old stuff that would go into the trash here, to make art as much as possible this coming year.
I plan to turn the space outside the gym into a clothesline- having a space where the participants can come and own their power and how they survived and went on to thrive…then inside the gym, we will have self- esteem workshops, outside on the grass, self love yoga and meditation in the grass.
Perhaps if you are struggling, wherever you are, you will be inspired and join us by hosting a similar event in your community.
Peace,
Celeste Monette Blair