Freedom Behind Bars: A Story of the Power of the Mind

Okay, so I wasn't technically behind bars, but I was in jail. You see the actual jail, like many here in America was full, so I was being held in a minimum security facility. It was an old reform school that the sheriff's department had acquired and repurposed. The ledges that once held chalk and erasers were still on the walls in many of the rooms. There were no more chalkboards or desks. In their place were bunk beds, steel lock boxes and inmates. We were all allowed to wear regular clothes, as did the guards who were distinguished mainly by the jingle jangling keys and intermittently squawking walkie-talkie on their hips and the luxuries of the free world they were allowed like an iced coffee, a cellphone or a slice of pizza.

There were no bars, they didn't even lock the doors to the facility. In fact every few months someone would escape. The officials called this "walking off" because that's really what it was. There was no need to be Andy Dufresne at this facility, you could just leave. Of course there were consequences for those that chose to do so and thus far no one who has "walked off" has ever been free for long. In lieu of physical security my fellow inmates and I were confined by way of counts. Every hour on the hour from 6:00am to 10:00pm there was a count. It didn't matter what you were doing, you had to go line up and check in with the guards.

It definitely took some getting used to, especially in light of the fact that most guys didn't have a watch and there were very few clocks in the whole compound. I think that was some sort of sick joke, but I digress. I had been sentenced to 60 days of incarceration. I could have served my time on probation for 3 years, but I like to smoke weed and struggle with anxiety, neither of which make you a good candidate for probation. Plus, I felt bad for what I did. I drank and drove and could have killed someone. My life had been out of control and perhaps sitting in an old school house for 2 months could benefit me, at the very least give me some time to reflect.

That was the attitude that I took with me. I wasn't going to jail, I was going on a spiritual retreat with very shitty accommodations. I had never been locked up for more than a night due to some youthful indiscretions and I'll admit I was a bit scared the fuck out of my mind at first. In a real jail there is a lot more control over movement and cameras everywhere in a facility that is purpose built to house potentially violent people. This was nothing like that, this was a few old buildings with lots of blind spots and lots of freedom to go wherever you wanted (except for that hourly count of course). Although the physical setting was wildly different than jail there was one thing that was unmistakably similar: everyone there did something bad, myself included.

I never had to fight while I was there, although I almost did. Perhaps I'll write that story another time. Today I want to talk about what happened on my last night in jail. I had been deemed a "good inmate" by my captors so I was never really hassled like some of the other guys who liked to raise hell just because there isn't much else to do. As a result of this by the time I was wrapping up my stay I had been moved to a quiet room with 13 other guys. It was a somewhat coveted spot because we all had single beds instead of bunk beds and there was a view of a river, for tranquility, and the staff parking lot, for strategic purposes.

Now just because the room was better than the rowdy as all hell "dorms" downstairs with 40 odd guys on bunk beds crammed into one room that partied harder than a Mormon on rumpsringa didn't mean it was all roses and sunshine. People squabbled, they sold and did drugs, they hustled, they fought, it was jail. I think most of the guys in that room thought I was a little nuts.

I had found that the best way to do my time was to have a routine. Every day I woke up and meditated for half an hour, followed by half an hour of stretching. Then I would socialize for a while and do my jailhouse workout routine which consisted of lots of burpees, leg lifts, push ups, dips using the bunk, and free weight lifts with a mesh laundry bag filled with plastic bottles full of water. After exercise was shower time, then lunch, then we were allowed outside for 4 hours and I would usually run until I couldn't run anymore. After my run another shower, followed by a nap, then dinner, after that I would read for a few hours, go to sleep and do it all over again. There were some variations to this, but for the most part that's how I did my time. Oh, and of course, every hour on the hour I went to stand and be counted.

Before I knew it my sentence was almost up. One of the most useful strategies one can have while incarcerated is to try and forget about the outside world. It often only leads to sadness and depression and serves little more than to augment the realization that you can't do any of the shit you'd like to be doing. You can't be there for your friends and family or earn a living or anything really. As my release date grew nearer and nearer it became harder to keep these thoughts from my mind. The night before I was set to leave I was overwhelmed with anxiety. I had no idea what I was going to do when I got out. 60 days is not a long sentence, but it's long enough to cost you a job, a place to live and the respect of a lot of your peers.

Maybe that's the reason why I did what I did that evening, maybe I was just bored. I think about the night in question often and I truly can't say what came over me when I decided to take a piece of paper from my pad and like a child fold it into a paper airplane. It was such a simple thing, yet in a place devoid of little other than suffering and hardship it was oh so out of place. Holding my creation of aeronautical origami in my hand after carefully creasing each fold so everything was perfectly symmetrical and folding the tips of the wings up perpendicular to form stabilizing fins I knew what had to be done. What good is a plane that does not fly? What good is a man confined to a cage?

Without giving any thought to what might happen I wound up and set my creation free. The flight was beautiful, majestic. I watched in wonder as it soared across the room, drifting effortlessly and as freely as I wished to be. That is until it reached it's final destination. Like I said I hadn't given my plan much thought. The plane flew about an inch above a guy who was finishing up a 7 year state bid for grand theft auto, he was a tough motherfucker and he rolled with the Bloods. My paper airplane whooshed over his face and crashed into the wall behind his bunk, the breeze of the flight on his face drew his eyes open. The entire room froze. I was pretty sure this guy was about to come beat the shit out of me. He got up and knew right where to go because everyone was staring at me. He walked over and paused for what seemed like forever and then he barked, "Lemme get a piece of paper".

I was more than happy to tear him off a sheet and not get punched in the face. He took the paper back to his bunk and got to work. Carefully folding and creasing his own creation. The sound of paper being torn off of jailhouse writing pads filled the room and within minutes it was a free for all. Our "cell" looked like LaGuardia on Christmas Eve. The room that often seemed so cold and filled with hate, anger and regret was brought to life with the sounds of laughter and smiling faces. As those planes freely soared so did the soul of each and every one of us. We were not in jail, not then. We were all free, if only for a moment.