Caring about them and looking at them makes me feel frustrated concern, probably similar to what my own elders felt as they watched me going through my identity crisis. Or so I think.
I've said all I can say to them. Now all I can do is pray.
I'm thinking about some of the friends I'll be leaving behind when I transfer to the next prison. Some I know are on the right track and will do well. One I helped to find a job, just today. I have two, however, who I'll worry about because I catch them with no-good company at times. They're younger and I haven't known them long, but I've taken an interest in them because they're likable and I think they have potential.
Caring about them and looking at them makes me feel frustrated concern, probably similar to what my own elders felt as they watched me going through my identity crisis. Or so I think. I've said all I can say to them. Now all I can do is pray.
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Reading Victory Over the Darkness, by Neil T. Anderson. It's a great book on living triumplhantly. Why is it that in our 40s we often encounter books filled with wisdom which we wish we had studied in high school?
Statewide this morning the prisons tested everybody for exposure to the Cocci, which is also known as "Valley Fever." This is actually a big deal. Blacks and Filipinos have a lower percentage tolerance for Valley Fever so they had to be transferred away from the two prisons which have high levels of Cocci spored in the ground-Avenal State Prison (ASP) and Pleasant Valley State Prison (PVSP). Now inmates everywhere are being tested to see who can safely be housed there.
A friend loaned me a radio so I could listen to Rick Dee's weekly top 40. Went to the pm chapel service. After the first Bible reading and weekly announcements, the announcer called forth guys who were paroling or transferring in the coming week. We formed a prayer circle in front of the altar and members of the choir surrounded us and prayed for us. That had never been done for me before in prison. I felt lifted.
Spent 8 am to 1 pm waiting in line to have my property inventoried and boxed by staff for my upcoming transfer to another prison. Afterwards, returning to a cell that had zero property felt strange. I borrowed a few books to read until they put me on the prison transport bus.
I feel optimistic. I'm gonna learn a lot of things this year and allow myself to be stretched by the master Potter. This year will be an adventure.
I wish everyone who's reading this a Happy New Year! |
AuthorPaul Pommells has been an inmate of the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation for more than twenty years, and has learned much about himself, his fellow inmates, and where one can find the hope and power to change. Poetry Corner
Paul and other inmates & friends bare their souls in words here.
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