Time in prison drips like molasses through an hourglass. I’ve found ways to speed it up, though. Working out is number one, but your body can only handle so much. Rest days, especially weekends, drag on. Reading helps, but it depends on the material. My book list is heavy on dense educational content, which can make time crawl. While I genuinely enjoy learning and know I’ll leave with twice the knowledge I had coming in if I stick to my reading list, “all work and no play makes Larry a dull boy.” So, I try to read an entertaining, fictional book at night. Right now, I’m reading a book about how trauma affects the human body. It’s fascinating and full of studies and scientific jargon. I never thought I’d know so much about the brain, its inner workings, and how it interacts with different systems in our bodies. I also never imagined I’d learn so much about the evolution of brain-activity imaging technologies. It’s a challenging read, which is why my nighttime escape into Dune is a welcome relief. I’m enjoying it immensely, but I won’t do a book report since I don’t usually review my entertainment books. Plus, if you’re curious, there are two movies.
The greatest accelerator of time, though, is the nice weather. It’s finally warming up, opening up a world of activities for us here. For me, that means running on the track (training for a half-marathon), teaching yoga on the lawn, meditating outside, and softball games. During the winter, there was a prison basketball league/tournament. It was really fun and a great time-killer. Two to three times a week, about half of the 255 inmates would squeeze into the gym to watch the games from the bleachers. It felt like being at a high school basketball game; all your friends were there, joking and yelling at the players. The refs are volunteer inmates, so there was plenty of yelling and taunting, especially when they made bad calls—all in good fun, of course. The championship game was last week, and I thought the fun was over until I found out this week that the softball league was starting up. I’m not sure if I’ll play yet, but I’ve watched a few pickup games, and they were hilariously fun.
All of this gives me hope that time might start picking up its pace for the next couple of months. Fingers crossed.
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