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June 21, 2003 Hi friends and supporters- I received the following letter from Jesse yesterday, and I spoke with him on the phone this morning. He is doing well, but eagerly awaits the day of his release, July 3, along with many other SOA Watch activists. The only visitors who were approved to visit Jesse during his incarceration are his parents, who have come every other weekend for the past three months to visit, including this afternoon. This is the last letter that Jesse is sending to the listserv, because I will be travelling begining this Thursday to eventually pick him up from prison with his parents. As usual, this letter is an amalgamation of the part of the letter that was written specifically for the listserv and the rest of the letter. I have reformatted the poem to be more legible (one poem line per typed line) than in its original form. It has been amazing to moderate this listserv over the past 3 months, and the support that I have received from many of you has kept me afloat during the difficult times. I can't thank you enough. Keep up the incredible work that you do everyday, and never give up hope. As the solstice draws to a close tonight and the darkenss begins to overcome the light, take a moment to reflect on what this spring has meant for your work, your communities and for the world. Much love to all of you, and in a few short days, you will receive a message from Jesse himself. Take care and stay strong, Sarah June 16, 2003 *Big Sigh* I want to go home! There were a lot of moves today, so now my little room that used to have 9 people has 16 people. It's really overcrowded and overfull w/ energy. Very unclear what all the personalities are going to do with each other. Mr. Mietelski is back after a week-long vacation, so things are also kind of tense because he's always barking at people. He doesn't even use the PA system, he just emerges in the hall and screams names. I'm getting a little lazy about rules and not paying attention to my environment very well. Today I was caught outside barefoot and yesterday I missed a count. The barefoot thing is not too big a deal but you can go to the SHU for missing count. Luckily the officers were a) nice b) all women and c) 2 of the 3 were queer so I just was laughed at - they found me holed away in a TV room reading, completely oblivious to everything, with the most dumbfounded look on my face when they burst in, clearly I wasn't trying to escape :) Nonetheless, I need to pay better attention. If Mietelski had been on duty I probably wouldn't be writing this. I read both the Marge Piercy (sp?) books - they were AMAZING, especially Woman on the Edge of Time. Also Joyce Ellwanger let me borrow Isabel Allende's House of the Spirits and I have several from the library, in addition to a book sent me that's by Starhawk called "Webs of Power" and looks really fantastic. Last night Katherine Brown organized an informal poetry reading, which was really amazing. People shared their own work and brought favorites to share. So we had stuff from Pablo Neruda and Adrienne Rich as well as pieces like "There Was an Old Woman who lived in the SHU" and other prison gems. I read one by Marilyn Buck, who got 80 years in prison for helping Assata Shakur escape. It's called Thirteen Springs: Had you planted a tree The reading was a big success - lots of hugging and crying - so we're going to do it again next weekend. I had a difficult experience at the end of it though. One of my close(r) friends here is named Maribel and we were talking right after the reading and she started crying because I am leaving in a couple weeks and Mimi a couple weeks after that. Myself, Mimi, Maribel, and another woman named Carolina are a little group of pals. But, Maribel and Carolina will be here until like.... 2005 and 2007 I think. It was so strange, I cried with her. I won't be sad to leave, but I'll be sad to leave HER, especially to leave her here - does that make sense? It surprised me to realize that I love them. Not the way I love people I've known for years, but definitely love. Why do peole have to be here? I don't understand it, I really don't. I hate to say what feels like an abstraction - The War on Drugs and capitalism - but they're becoming less and less abstract to me. Because these women I love are spending years away from lovers and children for drugs and stealing. Intelligent, warm-hearted, funny, sensitive women. Years and years. I don't think my life, my mind, can ever be the same knowing about people being in prison while I ... do whatever I'm doing. It's a thought that has occurred to me a lot during my job. At least once a week I work along the highway where peole drive right by, literally 2, 5, 10 feet away from me, where on the other side of two lanes of traffic there are businesses, homes, and an elementary school. And always I think, do they know? Do they know they are driving past mothers and grandmothers? Do they know they're driving by immigrants and poor people and dissenters? Do they know how many of us are innocent and do they know, truly know, what it even means to be guilty? Guilty of stealing from the wealthiest nation in the world, which is run by thieves? Guilty of addiction in a nation that has profitted not only from the sale of drugs but in the War on Drugs itself? I ask it of the cars that drive by, the parents dropping kids off at school, the commuters and joy riders, and not I must also ask it of myself as I prepare to cross back over that line, and, in my civilian clothing, get in a car and drive away.
SO MUCH love, Jessica Carr 91389-020 |