"Spirits"
by Al Cunningham, San Quentin State Prison, March 1995
I sit in the silence of my cell, listening to the whispers of the night thoughts, merging with dreams, hopes and fears. Flashing before me in their micro-wave images, flickering like little dots before my subconscious mind, infiltrating my thoughts, giving birth to an inner awareness. A kaleidoscope of colors, visions, forms, philosophies and ideas, like musical notes dancing in air to Grover Washington's sax, tranquilizing, exciting and setting loose uncontrollable physical impulses, the patting of the feet, the moving of the legs, and the eventual expressions of articulations printed in errant and abstract fashion.
Per chance I reach up and grab a thought a dream, a hope, a fear, and savor its existence, digest its essence, would I then become that thought that dream, that hope, that fear? Or would tbe gesture nurture an emotional rebirth, a mysterious in-depth insight into the cosmology of the mind?
They bring me day-light in a match-box, and expect me to radiate a sunshine smile, while I am yet vomiting the reality of the monstrosity I am forced to experience and endure. One of the fingerprints of this reality is fear. I had never imagined, let alone experienced, such fear. Pear which secretes from the pores of the walls and pervades the entire cell. I can see the fear rippling through the array of light between me and the bars. I can hear fear crashing like a thousand waterfalls, echoing ceaselessly from wall to wall. Screams of former occupants, their spirits yet moving around, existing, crying for help, for freedom, for some form of peace of mind. I too want to scream, but can't as I labor on the edge of either insanity or discovery.
While my mind is thus occupied on thoughts other than my present sitting arrangement, my legs become gradually numb, due to the irregular manner in which I am sitting. Rearranging my legs, so that the circulation will once again flow, I have to appreciate the humor of such a reminder that even the loftiest distractions from the present moment are yet distractions.
In my meditative sabbatical, I find that my actions do not go beyond my considerations, and my considerations do no go beyond my actions; I have a beginning and accomplish its end. I am the one who guards the citadel of my mind and serves the rules of the precepts. When the source is deep, the flow is long, and the high voltage of thoughts dreams, hopes and fears, which fluctuate within the sphere of this cell, tentatively allows me to look inside my thoughts dreams, hopes and fears. Many people look through windows and see hope, but I exist in a windowless, underground vestige of historical insanity, a turmoil hate ride through a punitive amusement park.
Jails and prisons were the brainchild of a lunatic architect to convince prison authorities that criminals might be broken of their miscreant spirit by striping them not only of their freedom, not only of their association with other human beings, but even of their sense of direction and awareness of day and night. Being here is the closest a human being might come to being nowhere at all. Jails and prisons alike were not intended to redeem the handful of unruly convicts; they were intended to punish, pure and simple, to punish, hurt, confuse, belittle, emasculate and eventually to break the contrary spirits.
There's this common misconception that all we have is time. Time to do what? Sure, we can hope to educate ourselves with outdated academic resources; it wouldn't hurt and it definitely would be constructive and progressive thinking. But this brings us back to time. Between the torture, torment and pain, there has to be a healing period. And that's the time when the thoughts, dreams, and hopes come into effect.
Housed like radio-active waste, I struggle for a meaningful existence. For I have seen what becomes of men with no hopes and dreams. Hope is precious, however remote. And desperate hope can make an optimist of any of us. I have chanced to become in practice what I am in principle, for I have found that having insight into a future that has no bearing on the present is useless, just as speculation about something that's going to happen has no effect on something that is happening. It is meaningless. Subsequently, I have become very aware of my own presence, and I see secret things coded, which I'm learning to decipher.
The isolation and feelings of being lonely that accompany the condition of incarceration are naturally compounded dramatically far the incarcerated person. And though there are many people out there claiming to care, they treat us like a box of cereal, wanting to eat of it, but not wanting to read of the ingredients.
Al Cunningham E-22600 San Quentin State Prison San Quentin, CA 94974