Then I Will Be in Prison Too

What we are living through, it is about time of course. But not in some tired metaphysical sense, not in some weird mystifying sense. It’s about the structure of time, its organization, the mentally-constructed boundaries to keep accounts: days in a week, weeks in a month, cups in a pint, pints in a quart, stitches in an inch, inches in the sleeve of a sweater being knitted. Laps in a swimming mile: Six sets of six, ritually counted. How much more?

I recall how, in the higher-security prison, time was different. There was more of it, and not only in the usual sense.  Because many sentences run 20-years, 40-years, and longer, time is more palpably excessive. A mother visits, she’s a ghost already; a brother comes a couple of times at first, and then stops. Families are in trauma and they can’t conceal it, and they’re better off when they are not there. It’s only because of the crushing fullness of time.

You have one wristwatch and fret when it’s not working. I don’t blame you. Minutes can mean a lot – time to oneself, or time on the phone. Hours mean less – a voice on a loudspeaker puts boundaries in the day: meals, go here, go there, come inside. You are more unnerved without a calendar for the year. Your primary unit is the month. Months count down the time, months renew outside ties – another block of phone minutes, visits allotted. A new month might bring someone a $5 paycheck.

Out here, I go by hours. Most of the time I am where I should be; if not, I am mindful of the consequences. The crudeness of a crackling loudspeaker is not necessary. I watch the clock. I go to work and return on the 8 am and the 6 pm moves.

Like you, I move when it’s time to move, with intention and purpose, but not abandon.

--Lisa Foley Stand/April 2006