1000 Days

Day 57 Poetry

2010-07-28T17:22:00.000-07:00

The fellow passengers as he calls them have discovered he is a song writer and beg him to write love letters to their wives. In return for writing them he is paid in paper and Bic pens so he can write to me. He confides that everything he writes for them is really what he is wishing for us. Here is the latest one written for a fellow inmate who longs to return to his former lover:

Be My Rainbow

Though I am in a Hurricane
All I dream about is You
Though the Tempest is raging all around me
All I hear is a Melody, Your Name, Your Tune

You are the Rainbow
That has Graced my Heaven
In Your eyes I see the end of the Storm
You are the Sunshine Whispering all is Forgiven
Yours is the Heart keeping me warm

Your Image haunts me every Moment
I feel the rhythm of Your Heart
Your Dance, Your Sway, relieve my Torment
I imagine our Souls Enwrapped

I have met you in a Magic Garden
I have reached You out in cyberspace
We have touched and yet I beg Your Pardon
I just want to Kiss Your Face

So please consider Being my Rainbow
Let All of Your brilliant Colors Shine
Because when the Storm is over
You are the Treasure that I Yearn to Find

Day 54 The State of Western Union

2010-07-24T15:32:00.000-07:00

So today I drive a half a dozen towns down the coast so I can privately send a small amount of money to my soul mate. With his earning power currently at 17 cents per hour, he can hardly afford a high retail granola bar let alone a hair cut. Even the e-mails we get to send add up at a nickle a piece. Imagine working an hour in a 100 degree kitchen scrubbing giant burnt on pans for what amounts to the privilege of sending 3 emails. It is a long way from Wall Street baby....To add insult to injury he hasn't been able to work for almost 2 weeks because a cart hit him in the shin and as it bled profusely through his pants and all over the floor he was told he could not be spared to go get it looked after. Later that day he was still not given permission to seek medical help and given a couple of band aids. The next morning he could barely walk on it. It was hot, swollen and had greenish pus oozing from it. Later his "boss" allowed him to go where ever it is they go for medical attention. The wound was examined and he was removed from work duty as they were afraid he may have come in contact with a staff infection - they sent a culture out just in case it was the deadly resistant, non treatable sort that is often cause for immediate amputation of the affected limb.
All this for 17 cents an hour.
So we wait for the lab test to come back.
Anyway, back to my trip to Western Union. I live in a teeny town where everyone knows everyone. So, I am thinking that if I go to the local Safeway and have Mr. Oh So Helpful Customer Service Manager handle my Western Union transfer - it will only take seconds for the entire town to know that I sent $$$ to the Federal Bureau of Prisons and to a certain someone that has a number following their name. Thus, a journey an hour down the road to a store I have never been in and a town I rarely frequent. Nonetheless, it is still obvious that I am sending funds to a prisoner and it is also obvious that I am new to all this. it is obvious because there is a certain code that I am missing. The girl helping me is a big, heavyset blond, make up brightly applied, nails long and fashioned into curved talons. She calls me away from the help desk area where others are waiting their turn to a more discrete corner of the long counter. With her voice lowered she looks at me knowingly and says, "honey, you need this special code to do this...I looked it up for you so you can just plug it in the next time." I know I have nothing to be embarrassed of but my face turns cranberry red and I look around nervously to see if anyone has heard or if there is anyone there that I recognize. I stammer something about helping a family friend and she says, " anyone can make a mistake." I have a feeling she may have sent a few of these herself.
Still, I leave feeling sick to my stomach, though grateful he can buy a few little things at commissary and make a few more phone calls.

38 Days .....Justice for Some

2010-07-08T09:34:00.000-07:00

Latest thing: E-mail......well sorta...He is now able to send e-mails to me for a nickle a letter. They go through a special website that I can sign on to. I write him. Someone reads it for acceptable content and then eventually he receives it. Sometimes, it seems to have a lag time of an hour other times it comes in up to a day later. I have noticed that if I ask him to call me at a certain time when I know I will be home - he gets the e-mail after the time I requested so he isn't able to reach me. This has happened EVERY SINGLE TIME. It really is like trying to communicate with the dead.

In the last email I got from him he had just found out that the person who had introduced him to the crooked attorney that landed him in this place to begin with; the man that was the mastermind behind the scheme had just received his sentence for concocting the mess. Well, if you can call probation a sentence. That's right. Scam people out of hundreds of millions of dollars and get probation. Run 45 minute meeting and give a report that your attorney asks you to give and get 4 years. He is now seething with the injustice of it all.

We tend to think it could never happen to us.........it does.

Day 33 Heaven or Hell

2010-07-03T08:59:00.000-07:00

July 4th weekend. My biggest decision is which beach bonfire and BBQ to go to. We are still incommunicado - apparently the phone minutes don't commence again until around the 7th. In a way it is like he is kind of fading away - perhaps its because I didn't realize how the calls with all the shouting and clanking in the background were constant and painful reminders of where he is. Without them, I write my daily letter to him and go on with my day, my life, my world of color and light and fresh air.
Selfish?? I don't think so. I think of a message I heard from a Toltec teacher last week that said,

" In reality, no one can make us happy. No one can make us unhappy. You are the only one that can give you heaven. You are the only one that can give you hell."

It is true. I did not give him this hell. I do not need to live in hell as a result of his choice. I can still love him and choose heaven they are not mutually exclusive. He can choose heaven too - now or when ever he decides he is finished punishing himself. I have chosen to no longer be punished by his decisions. I feel the day brighten even though the sky is a mass of clouds.

Day 30

2010-06-30T08:14:00.000-07:00

We have both survived the 1st month I leave you with an excerpt from his Gray Planet Chronicles:

The curious thing is that many of the passengers of the Gray Planet have all been transported several times...they are doing the Netherworld Tour just like Dante. Some have moved from camp to camp without any rhyme or reason...while others were deliberately punished for some excessive demand, like requesting better food. That is what I heard about several from the White Collar Planet mates who had previously organized a food boycott and were punished by being sent here...where it is worse. So be careful what you wish for in this place...

Pardon me as my thoughts cascade out. This is truly a shock akin to you breaking the triangle of the billiard balls. My thoughts are those balls scurrying to find a place on this gray felt and. In a reverse fashion to the game, not fall into the holes.

I am currently on the 5th floor. Supposedly the best floor with the Cadre inmates who have different (green) two piece outfits as opposed to the jumpsuits (khaki). The room is still a steel and concrete 2 story cocoon with 32 two man cells on the bottom floor connected by three 16 step gray steel staircases with mesh grating between the steps. One set of stairs at the west side ( I assume due to my window facing north) and the other two mostly on the east. The mid east staircase faces west and is next to the shower stalls on the 2nd floor which also contains 32 two man cells. So 64 is the number and as the Aztecs and the Babylonian believed it is the perfect number...It is the perfect number parenthetically, it also crops up in vector based mathematics...of which I will write profusely later because it is my inspiration for the vector...or the living vector philosophy on mythology which I intend to develop on the Gray Planet. Living vector...LIVE

As for living here...well the air conditioner is broken. It figures that it will break on the hottest day and at the beginning of summer. Normally, it is so cold...especially in winter that you need several sets of blankets and sometimes a double set of clothing to ward off the chill. Excessive on both fronts. At present, it is fetid and there is one 4 ft diameter fan moving air through the gray sub interior.

That interior is approximately 50' wide and 150' long supported by 10 four foot diameter round concrete pillars approximately 20 feet apart. The space is an atrium type with the center about 30' wide and about 130' long. There is a concrete ceiling with what must be steel end beams - 10 of them running perpendicular to the length of the floor. In each section between each set of concrete pillars 10 of those running in the center and suspended by very thin steel u shaped bands is a 4' radius steel tube reminiscent of the large colon canal of a giant appendix, because it is capped at one end and it curves into the rest of the building on the other end above the entrance to the gray capsule...it truly looks alimentary... but it is the air duct for the fallen A/C...appendix has burst...no air. The asylum... The rest I leave to your imagination. The most amazing things are the planet farm is run by the farm animals... The farmer is absent... And it’s great to get to know the menagerie. The first insight into the modus vivendi of the farm comes from “otter” call him industrious Otter works in the food provision area on the fifth floor and took the liberty to explain that you in some farms other industrious organisms have modern communication devices and run business us within the farm that pay their mortgages and their families lifestyles outside. The farm is an industry that apparently has stores and consumers on a grand scale. It is run with the farmer carefully and purposefully oblivious as long as the farm does not go up in smoke.

Is game night for the NBA playoffs Lakers versus the Celtics... big game, big deal... there is a buzz within the compound... however the recall at 10 PM which is the obligatory returned to the cells comes at an inconvenient time in the game... it is fourth-quarter the score is tight and the black bros contingent is furious that they have to go in. Bad karma... the new C.0 is an Italian woman was wrestling with control of the situation and doing badly... loud taunts ensue... commotion, threatens and finally a shake down of the main and loudest protagonists on the second floor.

There are searches of the cell that were to remove any and all disallowed items... of course the list is long - so the shake down is painful so that struggle for control is won yet again by the CO and the loudmouth is finally quiet slightly after midnight. Needless to say, I am exhausted since wake up is at 6 AM if you want bananas for breakfast. Bananas are the most coveted item on the breakfast menu. Truly the simple life... so this is the next morning and am on I am a trifle exhausted and will take a bit of a break before chronicling again...

Day 28 Monday Peace

2010-06-28T09:13:00.000-07:00

We have run out of phone minutes and I feel slightly guilty because it is kind of a relief. I don't feel compelled to stay home and to wait for a call that always begins with, "You have a prepaid phone call. You will not be charged for this call. This call is from an inmate at a Federal Penitentiary..."then somewhere in the background I hear him call out his name and I push #5 to allow the call to come through. Now I have a reprieve for 4 days. I can pretend this is not happening to him, to his kids and to me.

I feel selfish. I want to enjoy the sun shining on my face without thinking of him straining to see it through a metal grate in a 40x40 exercise pen. I want to go to sleep on my king sized pillow top mattress with my down pillows and organic cotton sheets without remembering he has a lumpy 3" blue striped foam mattress filled with the grief of all its past inhabitants.

I want to scream at him for being so stupid, so delusional and so desperate that he trusted the man, his former big shot attorney that got him into this mess to begin with.

Mostly I just want a little peace. I will get it for the next four days until the new month starts and the frantic, rushed phone calls start up again.

Day 27 The Sabbath

2010-06-27T09:43:00.000-07:00

Sunday - a day to pray. I will go and join my small congregation that welcomes all in the spirit of non-denomination, sexual preferences and the like. There will be more trays of food heaped up in the great room then there will be attendees. My kind of place! We will pray, meditate, sing and be grateful for all God has bestowed upon us. In all it will be a time to honor ourselves and others and find the light and joy that resides in all of us. His service will be quite different....

In contrast, he will likely attend and sing at the Sunday service at Club Fed. An excerpt from his Gray Planet Chronicles detailing his first day at church follows:

I get my first gig on this planet through "Boston Brad." I am singing in the choir for the Sunday service. At first, I was looked at with suspicion by Rev. Bird who is a devout black minister with eyes that follow your every emotion and question, " Have you got Christ in your heart?" He looked me over, his gray sculpted beard with glasses perched at the tip of his nose and eyes looking up and over with furled brows because he didn’t want to raise his head, only his gaze because he was contemplating Christ’s light on the fan wall that barely reflected the rays of the sun. "Everyone has Christ in their souls" I offered naively. That raised his approval and got me a hummph... "Well that ain’t necessarily so," he said. " The Devils in some folk and I don’t want nothing to do with the devil."

Rather try then intercede I said," I had accepted Christ and would like to sing with them." With an uncertain and dubious look Rev. Bird said, "We will see - the heart will tell it all." Here it was 11:45 and the chaplain came up to gather us up on the fifth floor, to take us to the chapel on the third floor. To get out, you have to go through padlocked 2 inch thick steel and glass door which has a glass wall next to it and a wide gray steel top bottom and middle. Then you have to go down the Gray Hall that connects (our side) with the East side; go through another gray steel glass cage door into the elevator area which has 4 steel elevators that look like they belong in an industrial slaughter house. The floor looks like something you would hose down after some messy animal leaves its entrails on the steel floor. The floor has these diamonds one inch patterned raised grooves could almost be fleur de lis but really are flowers of evil intent because they look like they could have been flesh eaters.

We trudge in to the chapel ,Boston Brad, Red Bird, Trevor, and another late 40s black dude. At the last minute a black guard with a gray metal and plastic heavy cart comes in with two bags of melting ice. He says, " brutal they have no fans or air conditioning on the fourth floor." He is right. It is about 85̊ and not a ripple of air anywhere... the air itself is gray... dead gray. We proceed to the chapel which is a gray linoleum floored 30 x 30 room with the PML and the far right corner an electric piano. In the center right is a single three-foot fan. The blue chairs with arms and gray plastic chairs are stacked against the left wall and there are the obligatory one foot-wide floor-to-ceiling jailhouse windows that have 3 inch thick glass separating the unholy congregation from the outside We saunter in, unstacked some of the blue chairs grab the hymnals and then the cockfights began... it seems that Rev. Bird and Duke sort of lock horns over the program. He believes that he is the pre-Madonna by the Rev. His older more puissant and knows what he wants... and by God’s Spirit... he’s going to get it.

We start off with, Go Tell it on the Mountain. I have never sung it so I’m humming along and then I start improvising and punching it up and that gets the Rev.’s ears pricked. He likes it so... I got the spirit of the Lord in me... well... why don’t I start with the first verse... those days with John Massey at St. Mary’s in with Rev. Harris sure came in handy. But you guessed it, Dukes nose is out of joint... he’s been one upped, so he tells me... "You don’t have to strain yourself..." I’m thinking I’m not straining the keys to low for me so I’ll just sing the third harmony well the Rev. Loves that. Go figure. So we are all smiles. Boston Brad then inquires about the next song in our repertoire. That starts another cock fight. Finally, it is settled and we sing Coming Home . While I spice it up with another one of my hallelujah - Aretha thing and it’s a dazzler! And so we go to the last song in which it says that the Lord shall take your burden and then we are done. Smiles for all and we in the in gratitude and all hold hands as a young church helper another cadre profusely thanks the Lord for the new additions. We all clasp our hands and then individually shake for good measure the Rev. Is all smiles now... I got the Lord a my soul and he knows it... he really knows it.

Day 26 Choices

2010-06-26T09:27:00.000-07:00

It is an insanely gorgeous day on the coast. One of those rare times when the sun is blazing and the wind has not yet picked up. I should be smiling. I should be happy. I should not think how he is trudging about on the Gray Planet with his only bit of sun breaking up as it comes through one inch steel grating.

But this is a mad day. This is a blame day. This is a day where I can't help but write him a letter that says he will never comprehend the hurt and pain he is putting his loved ones through no matter how much he is enduring. Or, that I will go on to drill it home that all of this hardship is not because the system is unfair or the judge was not just, but because of the choices he made. Not just the ones that got him into this luxury federal hotel, but all the ones leading up to it. All the choices he made for his short term gratitude have created long term pain. I even go on to point out that he chose incarceration as a way to stop having to make choices and because he had simply run out of ones that could induce relief for a life that he had so casually thrown away. A life that had afforded him a lifestyle that few will ever know. A lifestyle that his children have lost. He simply pissed all he made and all he inherited away. So now he lives at Club Fed where there is no mortgage to pay and no alimony to keep up with. His current friends are other ex-brokers, disgraced attorneys and dishonest accountants. It is a big slide from the West Chester Country Club crowd and the Palm Beach crowd and the Who's Who lists. For me, it is complete humiliation even though none of my friends know. On the inside I know.

Day 25 Silk Scarves

2010-06-25T10:47:00.000-07:00

All around me is great beauty. The Pacific ocean entertains me from nearly every window. Whales are frequent visitors and loll around with their pec fins breaking the surface, while the sea lions surf the waves or bark at the surfers. Steep sided sand bluffs form an irregular line down the coast only breaking for a magnificent river completes its journey at the Bay mouth. Coastal cottages perch precariously along the bluff tops and hang dangerously at times from its ever changing sides. They are painted in a myriad of hues that would be obscene in any other setting and most certainly would not pass HOA guidelines if there were any. So, my eyes feast on the lime green shacks, the over saturated yellow bungalows, the natural cedar shingled homes trimmed in magenta and in their insouciance and unwillingness to conform with the staid subdivisions found elsewhere - I am happy.

They remind me of him. His flair for color. His love of the unconventional. I close my eyes and I am 19 again and he is 26. He is wearing a light baby blue very thin silk shirt. A long fine Italian scarf in a riot of colors hangs casually around his neck. I have on a pair of gold jeans with a cream colored silk shirt the first two top buttons open revealing my model like flatness. A thick 22K chain with a cryptic Toltec looking hunk of gold that he had designed for a collection at the former I. Magnums hangs in sharp contrast to my pale sheath of youthful skin. My feet are adorned with something strappy and high heeled from some recent pillage at Saks or Neiman Marcus. He wears a pair of boots with some poor exotic animals hide reduced to leather. We are walking by the marina in Sausalito. He is singing one of his songs at the top of his lungs. We are immune to the curious stares. We are gold.

I have all the scarfs now. There are dozens upon dozens that he collected over the years. The latest ones have long silk fringe on them. Last year, he tried to update several of his favorites by purchasing spools of silk thread and sewing it on himself. The fringe is all different lengths and the knots are askew from his attempt. I painstakingly remove the tassles and redo them one by one. Each scarf has a story. I don't know all the stories because there was a 32 year period where the we led separate lives and now by a glitch in the universe or perhaps her humor we are separate again.

Day 24

2010-06-24T08:27:00.000-07:00

His writing are peppered in gray. Everything is either gray concrete or steel. The grayness is draining him faster than the endless routine and meaninglessness. Ironically, here in the North West we have also encountered the dullness of gray with only 3 days of sunshine in 30 something days. It is driving me crazy. I take more and more Vitamin D to ward off the inevitable depression that ensues from lack of sun. i think they call it S.A.D.S syndrome here.

Our conversations don't exist anymore. We have essentially drained the 300 minute bank. There are 5 minutes left until the 1st of July when the minutes are replenished. We have decided we will talk 2 minutes today. One minute each on Saturday and Sunday and use the final minute for Wednesday. The phone is his only lifeline to the outside world. His children do not have the means or transportation to visit him in NY. He will spend over 3 years there without a single visitor except maybe his court appointed attorney. It is suffering beyond comprehension to me to deny anyone the ability to see their family. He had thought that it was part of his plea bargain to be situated somewhere in the vicinity where he and his children lived. Cruel.

An excerpt from his Gray Planet Chronicles dated June 3rd, 2010:

They liken the place to a submarine...or more appropriately a gray space capsule on another planet. At this juncture, I am beginning to realize the pseudo-deity power of the creature at the bench who in capricious wrath was able to not to recommend my passage to Pensacola. I may be in Brooklyn for the duration.

Our conversation and link was so abruptly interrupted by the C.O (that’s correctional officer) because she was ready to accept the “self-surrenders” at that moment. She had been summoned an hour earlier by the front guard because the noon “self-surrender” was there...so she was ready and did not feel that she had to come back again at 2PM for me...The first indication of how things work on this planet - on the pecking order of things.

Since I am a self-surrender, I am called a “cadre” and I have some extra privileges which apparently count for a lot. I just don’t know yet, what they are. I am realizing that one of the major reasons I am here is self discipline or lack of it... In this environment, you literally have to force yourself to not sink into despair but to kick yourself out of stupor and move...get the blood circulating and mind thinking or else you could truly sink into the inferno...so discipline...strength and resolve - that when you are at your weakest...get up..move..Do not succumb to darkness

Day 23 Lets go Shopping

2010-06-23T07:48:00.000-07:00

17 pages updating his stay at Club Fed are crammed into my post box this morning. The 1st two pages are carefully printed and I can read them with out getting out my fat neon yellow highlighter to point out the words and paragraphs that he has to redo and send back ( a long 2 week process). After that the printing starts to disintegrate and turn to scrawl which I painstakingly try to decipher, but when a whole word is represented by little more than a wavy, bumpy line I have to pick out the words I can read in the surrounding text and make a stab at what I think they could be. It is a tedious and time consuming process but we have decided to document this journey in detail.
He tells me about the commissary. A small "store" where they can buy a limited amount of goods at hefty high retail prices. They don't actually get to physically shop there, but fill out a form and the goods come back to them a few days later. Here is an excerpt from his Chronicles on the Gray Planet regarding shopping:

Well... this is a continuation of the gray planet commissary which this month happens three times sort of like leap year once every indeterminate orbit. As usual there is horse trading. I need a notebook and a pen for my food for thought and others need Pringles or Pepsi... in a limited supply... so I trade a six pack of Pepsi... and have a corner on that market and I get a note book and a bic pen... fair trade... then I get some granola bars, Ritz crackers for Dr. Neck and I get a pair of athletic shoes so that I can exercise and not shred the only pair I was able to buy because you can only buy one pair per commissary and I have had only one commissary during my first two weeks on the gray planet lucky me. All around her of the sounds of commissary trading just like Wall St. only MDC.

Day 22 Gray

2010-06-22T08:10:00.000-07:00

He is told his release date. It is further out than what we had calculated. August 30, 2010. Longer than a thousand days. Much longer.

We have used up all but a few precious phone minutes for the month. So calls are now a minute or less.
Yesterday, I read that there are new sentence guidelines going in place in November 2010. There are changes that may help him if the guidelines are retroactive. How do I find that out? My next step will be to send him the whole PDF file, hope it passes muster in the mail room, and then hope he can meet with his attorney who hasn't contacted him since he got there.

In the meantime, I get another letter from him. This one is 17 pages long. The first 2 pages are relatively legible and then it declines into a hasty scribble that I can barely make out even for context. Beyond the confinement, the lousy slop they call food, the call outs, the heat, the gangs, the lumpy thin mattress, the schedule he mostly complains about the grayness of everything. Everything is painted gray. His biggest source of joy was going to the dentist where they had a teal chair - the first colorful thing he had seen since his arrival. I write him that we will ban gray from our home and our lives when he is released. We will live in a world of color.

3 Weeks

2010-06-21T08:01:00.000-07:00

I get my first letter from him. It is 46 pages long. The first page is to me. The next 45 pages are a scribblish mess called the Gray Planet Chronicles. I can usually read his slanty print, but much of this is truly not legible. I finally get out a highlighter and slash thick neon yellow over what I can't read before sending it back to him.
It is details of his new home which he refers to as the Gray Planet or the Gray Submarine. It is mostly a description of the living quarters - if you can call being imprisoned on the 5th floor of a building for the next 3-4 years living. I get cabin fever if I am in the house all day long. After hearing the actual dimensions of the facility - roughly 50 x 150 with a 40 x40 walled outdoor pen...I leave the house for the rest of the day. Just reading about it is giving me claustraphobia. It is raining so I mostly drive around eventually nosing my car into a slot in front of a local wine bar where I recognize a few friends cars.

I haven't been there for over a year and everyone is glad to see me or maybe they have just have a nice buzz on from drinking all day - either way, I take the last stool at the bar. Silver haired Barney next to me has brought in some of his homemade brandy for all to try. He proudly talks about the still he made to create this diabolical stuff. The patron next to me warns me, "don't smell it, don't taste it, just pinch your nose and down it as fast as you can." Barney has filled a small wine glass with this clear liquid that looks benign enough and placed it on the bar in front of me. I sniff it ignoring the warning. It smells exactly like rubbing alcohol. I mean it is identical to what I soak a cotton swab in. I decide not to do the taste test and tip the glass back fast trying to hit the back of my throat. I feel the tissues react and the burn slowly travels down, down, down. I chase the brandy with a nice glass of Cabernet. Twenty minutes later the talk is all about some 45' wooden yacht built in 1930 that can be had cheaply. There are only 2 others like it in the whole world and they are worth over 100K this one can be had for a mere 17K and there is nothing wrong with it..........I offer them my truck to tow it back from Washington state if they want it. They talk about mooring it in the large puddle we call a lake. It seems incongruous to me to place this once fair lady in a puddle but then again the lake is shallow and the boat at least couldn't really sink should it happen to take on water.

I finish my Cab. and go home to wait for a phone call that doesn't come.

Tomorrow is another day.

Day 20 Fathers Day

2010-06-20T08:03:00.000-07:00

Another 1st. Fathers Day in a Federal Penitentiary. He has 6 children and one darling grandchild. He was the real deal as a Dad. When all the other fathers were busy golfing at the Westchester Country Club and sitting around the Harvard Club and fortifying their connections he was home with his. He was the fun Dad. The Dad that cannon balled them into the pool while they laughed and screamed and begged for more. He was the Dad on the 10 speed with all his ducklings helmeted and tucked in behind him as they cruised the world together. He was the Dad coaching their soccer games. He was the Dad who made their snacks and listened to all their problems.As they grew older, he was the one they could ask anything and tell anything. He has such an open line of communication with them compared to my family where there are so many taboo topics.

They openly discuss sex from who you should share yourself with, to technique, to safety and its done from a perspective of love not lust. In my family, sex is never discussed, you would almost assume its not done. Together they talk about all the vices, drinking, drugs, etc. His older sons after having too much to drink in their college dorms would call and ask what to do to stop the pain from a night over over consumption. When I was in my 20's there were plenty of times I partied too hard. There was never a time when I called my Dad to ask what to do for the shakes or the screaming headache or the chills from poisoning myself with too much tequila.

He doesn't drink himself. Not any more. Not for 2o years or so. He never went to AA. He just stopped one day. He was terrible when he drank. A pathetic, needy, self important character would emerge after even one drink. Alcohol was like a poison for him. It was one of the reasons I broke our engagement and left him when I was 20 years old.

Now he has lost his exalted father status. His oldest son grew up with his first wife and they have an on and off again relationship mostly due to distance. His oldest son by his 2nd wife has barely spoken to him since the arrest. He just blames and hates and threatens to kill himself. He has gone from sweet and smart to vile and mephetic. He resents the loss of his prior privileged life style and at 25 is doing nothing to start a life of his own. The next in line has taken to sitting in his room for days and smoking enormous amounts of pot. He too is angry. He told me he wasn't meant to lead an ordinary life. They had everything. Now they have nothing. I couldn't understand he tells me. He too has a tendency for suicide and depression. I have had to talk him out of it over the phone lines before. Without their former trappings of wealth and privilege they are spiraling into a land of self pity and disillusionment. The middle son is OK. Cheerful, optimistic and creating a life for himself. He is the most like his father. They are cut from the same bolt. The only daughter is sweet and hopeful that she will build her own life and create her own dreams; she is not attached to what they had. The same is true with the youngest son who is kind and sings and plays guitar like his Dad.

He loves them all. He wanted more children. He had wanted one with me when I was 20. I was on the pill. When we reconnected and I was 50 he still wanted to have one. One golden love child. He begged me to have an egg harvested and suggested we get a surrogate to carry the child. I laughed and told him he was crazy. My child bearing days are over AND my child rearing days are also over. He has 6. I have 1 plus 3 grandchildren. That is it. We have done our duty to overpopulate the earth.

So it Father's Day. My father lies under the ground. He has since I was 21. His father died some 20 years ago too. This will be a sad day for him in his gray world or the "Gray Planet" as he has coined it.

Day 19 Incommunicado

2010-06-19T09:33:00.000-07:00

Eleven days left in the month. In our eagerness to stay connected via prepaid phone calls we have nearly maxed out the monthly allowance of call minutes. There are so few minutes left that we can't share anything other than brief, "I Love You's" and then hang up. I have things I need to discuss and so yesterday I did not answer the phone so I could save up a few minutes. I will do the same thing today - then tomorrow we can use 3 minutes. The problem is he doesn't know this. The phone rings with the now familiar unknown number on the digital readout screen incessantly except during his work detail, then it is every 15 minutes. The desperation in palpable. I harden my resolve. I need 3 minutes and to even tell him this will delay what I need to discuss an extra day. Finally I take the home phone off the hook. So of course my cell phone takes over. My mother is the first to tell me something is wrong with the home phone, it is just ringing and ringing and the answering machine is not working. Then the office calls to say they can't seem to get an urgent fax over to me. Next, my slew of girlfriends ring the cell. F---. I turn off my cell. I replace the home phone receiver to its cradle and walk out the door. I'll come home after 9pm. The prison phone bank shuts down then.

I feel like I am being mean. I don't care. Maybe I am. So much is out of my control. Whether I take a phone is in my realm of control. It is a choice I still have left to me.

Day 18 Two for the Price of One

2010-06-18T07:28:00.000-07:00

When to beings are in love and you confine one; it is like a two for one deal. You are both effectively imprisoned. The only difference is one is sequestered inside the man made world where all is gray. The other is tethered to it. The cord is a long one and invisible at that, but it may as well be a unbreakable chain shackled to your leg because you can't really get away from it. You live to take 10 minute calls from a federal prison. You wait by the phone canceling appointments and luncheons afraid you'll miss the call. When it arrives your conversation is timed and likely recorded and every so many seconds a mechanical voice jumps in to remind you, "this call is from an inmate at a federal penitentiary," and your not sure if they heard what you said because the recording was squawking away and now you have to repeat yourself and time is ticking like crazy and they sound upset and you ask what happened and they say there is no time to tell you but that they wrote you about it and then the little beeps come that signal the call is over and you are left alone in your kitchen holding a dead line.

He tells me often he is living in a gray world. I paint. You get gray when you mix black and white. Some people think everything is black or white. Right and Wrong. Good and Bad. The reality is nature is a plethora of color. Pick up a pine cone and really look at it. You may have thought it was just all generic brown. Well look closer. I can find 2 dozen shades on a pine cone. Black and white are not even colors - gray is an abomination of the two - flat - dead. I use black and white when I want to lighten or darken colors on my palette. I use black and white when I want to make a statement. The stark contrast of the two. People are not all black and white, but judgments are. They can take the color and drain it out of us. They can make us gray.

I tell myself to stay in the moment. I cannot change what has already happened in the past. I am not a magician either so my influence on altering his time in the gray world is nil. Resistance is futile. I can only pray that the system won't send me back someone I don't know anymore. That my kind, easy going guy with the sparkle in his eye will reappear intact - his debt to society paid in full.

Day 17 Erotica

2010-06-17T09:23:00.000-07:00

I wrote my first piece of erotica today. Body parts cleverly disguised as flower parts........he will get it. We can communicate completely in subtext. What I can write and send to a federal penitentiary is somewhat of a mystery. Business cannot be discussed. Clippings from the paper are OK but apparently not a whole page. Pictures go through, but he can only keep up to so many. Same with letter storage. Everything is opened and read prior to his receiving it. Every time I write, I can't help but think, I am writing 2 letters. One for the pleasure of my lover and one for the letter inspector. I can't help but keep this is mind as I write him his daily letter or select a card. I picture a prison worker hunched over a stack of letters in the back of the mail room. They slide a sharp letter opener into the top fold of an envelope and remove the contents for closer inspection. I imagine they first check for contraband - stamps, gum, drugs, razor blades etc. Then they pour over each letter for content. I feel violated and I am not even the prisoner.

Up until now my letters to him have been a summary of the days events peppered with questions about the details of his situation. Some days they are encouraging. Those are the ones I write on my good days. Other ones slip through that were written in anger and disgust at his entire situation. Those will likely be the letters he chooses not to covet and keep in his limited collection. This latest letter will no doubt be a keeper. It is rich with sexual innuendo. It will likely start smoking and self destructing when the letter inspector peruses it.

Day 16

2010-06-16T08:09:00.000-07:00

When the whole debacle went down in 2009 and his so called boss was being investigated he was so sure he had no involvement that he hadn't taken one step to protect himself. By the time he realized he was also being dragged into it - it was too late. When all of your assets are confiscated or frozen - you are done. Forget trying your case with a public defender especially when it could mean 20 years if you lose. You take the deal. It will destroy your reputation, your coveted friendships and your family. It will cost you all the way to the end of your future. But, when you are nearly 60 years old, you can't afford the gamble. You take the deal. Your attorney is saying they won't go for the max of the deal (5 years). The prosecutor does not seem out for blood. The meetings with the judge have gone well. It is your first conviction. You have agreed to pay back the funds that were paid out to you and they were minimal in the scope of things. You are thinking they may go with community service, probation or at the most a year.

Day of reckoning and you get 46 months to be served nearly 1200 miles away from your family. The plea deal you thought had taken into consideration that your family lived several states away and you expected to serve your time there (if there was time to serve.) The reality is you won't see your 6 children and grandchild for the better part of 4 years. It seems beyond cruel. I can't believe it is legal. So, I begin to sleuth. I soon discover that there is no legal obligation to return an inmate to the area they resided. It is perfectly legal to have them serve their time where the so called crime was committed.

What about prison transfers? This is harder to figure out because things changed after the patriot act and it varies from state to state. It appears you can request a transfer. It also seems that they are highly coveted and rarely given per request. Interstate transfers are the most difficult of all. The process itself it seems could easily drag as long as the sentence itself. If there is a transfer, they tend to happen towards the end of the incarceration as a way to start to reintegrate a human back into their own life.

What is the point of all of this? According to the judge at the sentencing they said he was to serve as a deterrent for others. A poster child. The brains, the talent, the kindness and his enormous ability to help others could have been harvested via community service is locked up. Instead, he wastes away his time and the tax payers hard earned dollars along with many other nonviolent criminals in the gray bowels of a federal pen.

Day 15 The Tooth Fairy

2010-06-15T09:11:00.000-07:00

Doubt may take a bite out of love, but I have discovered it has a best friend called, GUILT. This time mine and what is my sentence? In the back of my brain I see a judge sitting astutely at her bench. She has a remarkable resemblance to Judge Judy. Her lips draw tight and she squints hard into my eyes. "I sentence you to a life without love and in addition, due to the particularly extenuating circumstances I add to that, a life without passion to be served concurrently." Her gavel echoes and I am led from the courtroom. As I am taken away, all the color begins to drain away from the world at large and becomes shades of gray and black and white - just like the justice system I think to myself.

He calls around dinner time. I am heating up a can of vegetarian chili. It is tasteless and has some weird textural things going on. I roll unknown blobs of what I am hoping are protein around in my mouth. I had the same thing for lunch. I had the same can of crap everyday now for 2 weeks. I feel guilty when I eat anything tasty. Eating has lost its hold on me. We love all the same foods. No flesh foods, but sushi, salmon, fresh picked fruit and gorgeous veggies and generous amounts of spice and heat! He is an amazing chef and prepares meals that could be photographed for magazines. They are always beautifully arranged pieces of edible art. They are made with love.

From the second I take the call he is reading a love letter he has written me. In the background, I can hear shouts and clanging and commotion. I am trying to absorb his rushed tide of words but the noise is distracting. I ask him what all the noise is and he pauses and says, "Darling, this is no camp, this is more like a maximum security prison." Then the noise abruptly escalates and it sounds like someone is yelling at him. "I love you and I've gotta go right now this is a..." the call truncates and the line goes dead in my ear. I have no idea what is happening and I wait for a return call that never comes. After 9pm my time he no longer has phone access. At 9:30 I slide a DVD in the deck. The Tooth Fairy. It is perfectly juxtaposed with my entire life. It is funny, but I don't laugh. Not once.

Day 13

2010-06-14T08:01:00.000-07:00

There was no Day 12.
Well there was technically - I just took it off my books. It was a day of DOUBT. It was a day I didn't want to play in the universe. I sat on my chaise and wrote a long essay on doubt and how it has the ability to destroy love. Later, I ate a half a pound of jumbo shrimps and watched three movies from the Redbox. Throughout, the phone rang incessantly and eventually I took it off the hook. I knew it was him. The daily frantic call trying desperately to get through. Yet, I was stewing in my doubt.

When a call arrives from a Federal Prison there are 2 options. Press one number and you are connected to the clandestine world of those locked away - your friend or your loved one. Press a different number and you essentially block that world from ever being able to call you again. EVER. I toyed with the idea of pushing that other number. I could end this grief, this stress, this depression by just touching a number. I could move on.

I sat on my slip covered chaise with its muted flower pattern and sought advise from the wisdom of the ocean pounding relentlessly below. There was no one else I could share my thoughts and feelings with. My friends don't know about my connection to this man nor would they approve. My mother knows, but she vacillates recklessly between thinking we need to support him via letters, calls and cash infusions to thinking we ought to slowly diminish the contact - kinda like wean him off the life support. In the end, with her fickle and capricious nature she is no help whatsoever.

I allow myself to sink and drown in my self imposed sea of doubt. Questioning myself relentlessly. What kind of life would I have with someone who has effectively and nearly systematically destroyed their own? What does a man do that is just shy of retirement age and has zilch for resources. I mean nothing. Zero bank account, no home, endless debt, 5 children - two of whom are now are severely depressed and threatening suicide, an Ex that wants over a million in back child support and a resume that says last career was in the pen washing pots and pans. Oh yeah, I shout out loud to the walls, "that's my man."

Except the love I had for so very many years for this person is now mired in more than a smattering of doubt.

Day 11

2010-06-13T09:54:00.000-07:00

He began his new job today. He washes pots and pans in the kitchen from 7am until 2pm five days a week. He is not sure what it pays. We have heard everything from $17.00 a month to 2 dollars a day. What a relief, that will put food on the table for his 5 kids at home with his ex. Sadly, the Ex and the massive alimony/child support he agreed to pay her was where this story all started. He had lost his job and couldn't make the $10,000 + per month payments. She repeatedly had him thrown in jail for coming up short while he was seeking work which in turn made it next to impossible for him to get work. He was really just demoralized bait when his friend and attorney suggested he come work for him. Yes, the same high profile attorney who is now serving 20 years.
So now he is employed. One for the resume.

Day 10 Fruit Police

2010-06-12T07:38:00.000-07:00

The phone rings as I am rinsing a handful of plump organic blueberries to go with my hemp and flax seed granola. I glance at the caller ID and it blinks "unknown caller." Immediately I reach for the receiver before it goes to voice mail and hear the now familiar computer generated female voice telling me I have a prepaid call from a federal penitentiary. it has lost its shock value for me and getting a call from a federal penitentiary is now as routine as taking a call from my grandmother. It is amazing what we can get used to.

He is frantic. He keeps repeating, "are you all right." I assure him and go on to tell him I had gone to a movie last night and had missed his call. He continues on telling me how worried he had been. How he hadn't been able to sleep. We lose 90% of the phone time to his reliving the anxiety. The last couple of minutes are spent talking about his new diet. He tells me how breakfast for him involves getting in line, eating a piece of fruit and returning to go through the line again for another piece of fruit. The guys refer to this as eating on a daisy chain as they go round and round. Weekdays are usually apples and once in a while an orange, but weekends he informs me are a treat because they get bananas. I ask him if the guys are allowed to bring fruit back to their hotel cells. It is against the rules. They had just done a fruit sweep and found some of the men were hoarding fruit in their "rooms." I didn't get a chance to ask what the penalty was for the fruit infraction. It sounded like a serious matter. I made a note to ask if it would go against "good timed earned." The 15% time reduction they could earn for being ideal inmates. I urged my fruit loving lover to not even consider risking it.

The phone line made a few barely audible beeps and the call ended at the preassigned time. I looked over at my beautiful perfectly ripened blueberries perched perfectly on the granola and reached for one.

Day 9

2010-06-11T08:31:00.000-07:00

We had decided that the phone call today would be around dinner time. At 5 o'clock my girlfriends show up spontaneously to scoop me up and take me to see, "SEX IN THE CITY" which was playing out its last night in our not so sexy city. I have no excuse for not going. They are unaware that I have reconnected with my love of 32 years ago and would likely banish me from town for assuming any kind of relationship - physical or not with a man spending time behind bars. I would be seen as the lowest of the low. Or they would cough up money for therapy and try to cure me.

When his name had first appeared splattered across the internet, in Vanity Fair, the NY Times and every other major publication a few friends had asked, "didn't you see someone by that name years ago? " I had admitted to that. I had tried unsuccessfully to try his case in my own words for them in a more favorable light for his benefit and mine. It hadn't worked. They were of the belief that if he had taken the deal rather than gone for a trial thus, he was guilty and the judge was justified in the sentence. Case closed. That was how I used to think too. Everyone in the clinker deserved to be there. Like the old cliche, "you do the crime, you do the time."

Everything is black and white up until the point you have a personal encounter with the justice system. Then you start seeing color. Then you start asking questions. Then you start examining crime and punishment. Punishment and rehabilitation. Can a human being be simultaneously punished and rehabilitated? What if the punishment is worse than the crime? Where is lady justice with her flowing mane and scale? Why is she always shown with the scale tipped to the side that is weighted with the most $$$?

So, we go to the movie. for two plus hours I escape into designer spring collections, successful NYC women, gorgeous tanned men and a life that could have been mine 32 years ago.

Week 2

2010-06-10T08:44:00.000-07:00

He was watching a basketball game. When it was over and he went to call me; the phones had been turned off. We learn something new. Calls can only be made up until a certain time - shut off is about midnight east coast time. The positive thing is we now have a few extra minutes of time for another day. The bad thing is I 've taken one of my few coveted tranquilizers for nothing and feel groggy.

I turn on TV and see that 60 Minutes has just recently recorded. I cue it up to find out the first chunk is an interview of his famous ex-attorney who is now serving 20 years for masterminding the financial misfortune that landed my lover where he is. There is a cameo shot of my soul mate that I play over and over on slo-mo. It is the only live footage I have of him. How sad is that?

It is nearly summer in the Pacific NW and the weather is still tempermental. We have slipped from 70 degree gardening days into gray, windy, 50's. I decide to walk on the beach. Half a mile from any beach access or hope of cover, the sky breaks open and I am drenched. It seems so perfectly fitting. I decide to look for agates. I decide the storm gods can do whatever they must do. I decide to laugh and dance in the rain.

Day 7

2010-06-09T08:41:00.000-07:00

We had decided that to would be best to have our daily phone call in the early evenings. It gave me something to look forward to all day long and plus I could tell him about that day rather than the day before.

I had finally settled down, well somewhat, and the anxiety had lifted to the point where I had stopped taking medication for a heart that wouldn't stop pounding and a brain that kept questioning how I, how we, would survive this. The letters, this blog and the 10 minute call would get me through on a day by day basis. Plus, 7 days marked one week. It was a milestone of sorts. We had made it through the first day and now the first week of alone-ness - together.

I even joined a ladies drumming circle at the church and had escaped for an hour into the rhythm of a deerskin drum. It was freeing. It was magical. I couldn't wait to share the experience. But I didn't. The phone call didn't arrive. I was back in the pathos of not knowing.

I stay awake most of the night. Has he been hurt? Did he have a heart attack (and would someone call me if he did?) Has he lost his phone privileges if so, how? Was it something not so serious like the phones were down? Were they moving him?

I pop a tranquilizer and wait for sleep that doesn't come.

Day 6 Catlish

2010-06-08T08:08:00.000-07:00

My days are starting to follow a pattern. Get up. Feed the cats. Make coffee. Write Blog. Go to work. Write lover in jail. Wait for daily 10 minute phone call. Read. Go to bed with cats.
The phone call is the lifeline. We are learning to talk very fast. The languorous moments where we would sigh and reflect and connect without words have been unceremoniously scrapped and I miss them. Instead, I have a notepad with everything I need to say and ask. We have agreed not to talk about anything we have written each other so as to avoid redundancy. Besides, how much fun would it be to get a letter only to find everything old news?

Today, I am asking him about a piece of music he had written years ago that I had just heard for the 1st time when my female kitty started meowing annoyingly loudly as she paced around my feet. He said immediately, "put her on." Reluctantly, I hold the phone up to her perky ear. She listens intently as he meows and purrs back at her. This would seem bizarre except she is a highly intelligent and very talkative part Asian leopard. He has an equally amazing gift that allows him to hear and repeat sounds that I can barely discern. It is probably why he has no accent when he speaks in English which is not his mother tongue. It is probably why he can speak many languages while I stumble with my mother tongue. My beautiful marble and spotted kitty ends her plaintive vocalizations and begins to settle down and purr.

My mother in her infinite wisdom laments, "don't you wish they could talk (the cats)?" I look at her and say, "what do you think that was?" She shrugs and says, "but I mean in English." I respond, " what part didn't you get...the cat said, I am pissed off at you, where the hell have you been? Have you forgotten me? " It is CATLISH. He speaks it. I understand it. The cat gets it too.

I take the phone back from the now calm cat and hear the beep signaling the end of the call.
Meow means I love you.

Day 5 Chinese Any One?

2010-06-07T08:15:00.000-07:00

Every hour on the hour the phone rings. It says unknown number on the digital printout. I pick it up and a prerecorded voice tells me that I cannot place a phone call at this time. Excuse me? Finally at 8pm the phone gremlins are done screwing with me and I get the coveted call from the federal pen. By this time I have drunk most of a bottle of wine, cranked up a David Bowie CD and have created a new acrylic painting with my best friend who is hanging out with me lamenting the end of her 9th or 10th marriage. It has been a good day.

I push #5 and take the call. My lover who also paints is genuinely pleased I have not spent the day crying. We have budgeted 10 minutes for the call although it is tempting to go to the 15 that we can take but that will mean we will use up the 300 minute allotment and be incommunicado before the end of the month.

He has had a good day too. He got to sing in the choir and did 3 songs on his own. He has a fabulous voice and could have been a recording artist. The guys all clapped and cheered at the end. This is a good gig because he gets to practice for 45 minutes before the service on Sundays and it's an activity he can put his heart into.

I question him if the food is any better on Sundays and learn Fridays are the best - the weekend was mainly leftovers. He did get some mackeral though...yum. Was he able to spice it up I inquire? NO. BUT apparently at Christmas and only at Christmas they hand out packets of Chinese mustard. His cellmate, who it turns out is an older, despondent attorney has a few of these coveted packets from last Christmas. IF he doesn't use them before he gets out (4 months) he may leave them behind for my guy. My lover is extremely hopeful that he become the recipient of at least one packet of mustard.

Something to look forward to.

Day 4 Heat

2010-06-06T08:27:00.000-07:00

The phone starts ringing while I am in the tub. I know immediately that he is calling. Just like I know when my mom is ringing me, or my daughter, or anyone close to me. It is a gift passed on from my mother who is the same way. It is my only claim to the psychic realm. I pick up the phone and hear a recorded message that I am being called by a federal Blah, Blah, Blah. He had told me the calls would always start with that, but just the same it is creepy. The recorded voice mentions some options. Push a certain number and all future calls from this institution will be blocked. I then hear him faintly say his name in the distance. I start shouting into the phone, "Honey, Honey are you there?" There is a brief silence and then the prerecorded message cues up again. I listen more carefully this time. It instructs me to push the number 5 to continue the call. I am looking at the keypad without my glasses so the numbers are all blurry. I am worried I'll push that number that I can't remember which will stop all future calls. I braille my way to the #5 and we are connected.

He tells me we have 15 minutes. I've already scouted out the phone call allotment. It is 300 minutes per month. Break that down into 10 minutes a day. But wait, I can't take it all. He has 6 children and friends too that need some of those precious moments.

We talk really fast. His voice has lost its usual verve and enthusiasm. If he hadn't announced himself I would not have recognized it. Believe me we have talked a lot on the phone in the past 18 months. Endless hours. Staccato bursts of verbiage go back and forth. My main concern is if he is safe. He assurses me, yes, so far. I start to grill him on the conditions; Is he warm enough? Can he sleep at night? What about the food? I hear him sigh heavily before responding, "There is no air conditioning...it is sweltering. the guys say they turn it off for the summer, but run it in the winter" I am at a lost for words. This is inhumane. People get into trouble for leaving pets in their cars in the summer and yet somehow hundreds of humans get sealed in an a stinking hot and virtually airless building? He continues, he has been able to sleep at night. The mattresses measure about 3 inches in thickness. It is OK. The food is horrible. He isn't eating much. Neither of us eat meat. In the real world, as a vegan, it is a challenge to get enough protein, minerals etc. In his situation it is hopeless. That was one of the few things we both knew prior to him going in. Is anyone naive enough to think prison food is yummy and good for you?

We hear a beep sound on the phone line. The call is about to cut off. I hurriedly tell him I love him and then there is silence.

Day 3 Silence

2010-06-05T07:42:00.000-07:00

72 hours and not a peep. I realize I don't even know where they have taken him or when I will hear from him. I don't know what I expected. Did I think they were going to check him in and then hand him the phone and say, "Mr. ___please be our guest and call your family so they know everything is OK and that it is not at all like what they have seen on TV shows and when you are finished dinner will be served?" In truth, I had some expectation that he would be allowed to call and offer reassurances that day. Realistically though, I thought Day 2 would be more likely. By the end of Day 3 my anxiety levels were starting to soar. By the end of Day 3 I had surfed the net enough to discover some truly scary things about where he was and who his new room mates were. By the end of Day 3, I was questioning a system that would have such little consideration for the families of those incarcerated. Why were we also being punished? Was this increased worry necessary? Did it serve some useful purpose to his 6 children? Was I just missing the point altogether? Was this really how this worked???

He had surrender at one facility and then at one point was be sent somewhere else to serve the time. But, at what point? And where? This goes back to those assumptions. I assumed that when someone received a sentence they would be also told where they would be placed for the duration. It only seemed to make sense. Why put one more burden on a family who is already stressed from the loss of a loved one and often the loss of their contribution to the household income as well. It didn't seem like this could be right.

I start to Google around looking for info. There is very little. The prison sites themselves provide info such as statistics on the makeup of their populations. For instance, how many had committed violent crimes, pulled robberies etc. How old the inmates were and their ethnicity could also be found. While I am sure this is important information - it does not tell you where your loved one is, how they are or if they are still alive. There is extensive info on the procedures to follow to visit a loved one. Lots of rules on what to wear (or not wear), who can purchase food from the snack machines and lots of stuff on how to lose the right to visit. But, this is not that pertinent considering we don't even know where he is.

I start to snoop around prison blogs, prison help formats. There is not as much as you think out there considering somewhere in the vicinity of 2 million Americans are living in prison (now that is new info for me to digest...) I wonder do they scrub these sites? Are they somehow removed from the internet? Is what I am writing going to be removed? Will I get in trouble for just asking questions? I can't help but notice that most of what promises the real scoop on prison life is not free and available in book format - generally written by an ex-convict. Kuddos to them for figuring out a way to take a gain on their stay -

So an interminably endless Day 3 comes to a close - in silence.

Day 2 Reliving the Surrender

2010-06-04T06:10:00.000-07:00

Day 2. My mind is still back on Day I. Yesterday was the day we had dreaded for 2 months. The day he surrendered himself to commence his sentence. At noon, we are talking via Blackberry. He is to turn himself in at 2pm so we are down to our last 2 hours. We have spoken for hours every day for 18 months or so. This is because I live on the west coast and he has been forced to reside on the east coast. The proceedings had all taken place in New York, the house arrest was in NY and any trips out of the vicinity were short lived and difficult to acquire permission for.

Shortly into our last call before his incarceration he interrupts me to say his second eldest son is on the other line. I tell him to take the call and ask him to call me back. He is the oldest son of his second marriage. He has been incommunicado for some time. It is self imposed. He is bitter about his parents divorce and subsequent loss of his privileged life style even though it has been nearly 10 years. He vacillates between being mephitic and hateful to both his parents, and his 4 younger siblings. He has verbally terrorized the family for some time now and recently started to threaten to carry out his own self destruction via suicide. My love has tried to reach out to him for weeks with no success. Now with 2 short hours left he is on the line. I sign off and get a cappuccino. Minutes turn into a half an hour. I decide not to wait and call him back. I am praying he isn't being nasty and has somehow morphed into a decent human being if only for a moment in time.

My love picks up immediately and tells me they are at by the prison entrance. His buddy has gone around the building to find out where he needs to go but we will talk until just before 2. The reality and the finality is crashing down on me. I am consumed by my own emotions and can barely talk. He keeps asking me, "Darling, are you there?" I sputter, "I am here"...and can say nothing else. In a moment of silence, I can here the sound of many feet approaching. His buddy has returned and with him are several officers. My love tells them he has all his paperwork but will not be surrendering until 2PM. I hear one officer say, "You are coming in now." My love counters with, "Please officer, I have a court signed order that says 2PM and I am saying goodbye to my fiance." The officer repeats himself and I hear my lover say way in the distance, "I love you very much...it will be OK...." and the line goes dead.

And part of me goes dead and limp. And even this seems like more more abuse of power. And something in my that had been dormant came alive. Something powerful and human but I don't know yet quite what it is.

Day One

2010-06-03T16:52:00.000-07:00

There are moments that define us. There are moments that test us. There are moments that change forever what we think and pry our eyes open. I am living through one of those moments. My eyes are open and they are not shutting. They are questioning eyes. They are pensive eyes. They are tear stained eyes.

I have lost the remainder of my naivety. It took 51 years. And no, I did not just lose my virginity, smoke my first bowl, snort my first line or get conned out of any or all of my hard earned bankroll. In fact, I never knew I had any innocence left. Compassion - yes, Love - yes, Feelings -yes. But as far as maneuvering the landscape of life in USA, I felt pretty damn competent. I am a successful business person in my community. My friends are the "right" friends...the ones that make the decisions in the town, in the state, in Washington. I live in the right part of town, in the right house and drive the right kind of car.

I have street smarts. Long ago I figured out that all things are not equal especially on the professional front. One surgeon was not the same as the next. If you have any doubt Google breast augmentations or face lifts and make your own decision as to who gets the A grade and who barely made it through the exam. It is the same all the way across the board. Pick any profession from lawyers, to teachers to handymen and you'll find a range of talent.

So, why was I surprised when my best friend, my lover, my soul mate got more punishment than even the prosecutor was willing to settle for? Were judges somehow exempt from the talent continuum? Had I really expected fairness, justness and wisdom? Christ, yes. I had. I was a newbie to this whole world of charges and trials and deals. I knew nothing of convicts, felons and prisons other than what I had seen in the movies or on TV. No one in my family had ever done anything bad enough to warrant a stay in jail or at least if they had they had never gotten caught.

So, you see I had a lot of assumptions about everything to do with the law, with justice and with jail life. For instance, I assumed that whatever the sentence; my lover could get off in half the time on good behavior. Wrong. That went out with the Patriot Act. I assumed that a judge could never say they were delivering a strong sentence because my lover was an immigrant with an Ivy League degree (wasn't that racial profiling?) I never knew that when the time came for him to start serving his time we wouldn't even know where they were going to take him.

I never knew that while he was incarcerated, myself and the family would fall into a state of depression that we had little or no means to deal with. And this is only day 1.