July 10, 2012
The funneled afternoon sunlight that sheds across this particular cell takes me to Europe in my mind-it's not pink like Paris, it's yellow…buttery yellow like an Italian Garden. It warms my face when I close my eyes and takes me there right now. My paper is buttery yellow in this light. I'm going to close my eyes again and take a nap, pretending I am asleep in that garden…and there is a cat curled up next to me.
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I had Court today. I half expected the Court date to be rescheduled because yesterday I was deemed unready to participate in a Court Hearing because I am under Psychiatric Evaluation for another 30 Court days. I assumed that official 'unreadiness' would have seeped it's way into today's court date, but no such luck...I heard my name on the loudspeaker and sleeping after another restless night was no longer an option.
I once again participated in the dehumanizing experience of being chained at the ankles, wrists and waist at 6:30 A.M., transported in the back of a Sheriff's human cargo prisoner van and then forced to wait for 3 hours in a freezing cold holding tank with a dozen or so other women going through the same experience, however varied our individual journeys may be. What made this day's humiliation different than all the rest was the fact that when I came to this jail, I was prescribed a medication that practically knocks me out and this medication was delivered to me right before I was called to court. The medication makes me dizzy, drowsy, but also agitated.-like thousands of muscle twitches are going off in bodily sequence -all over. (*the meds were discontinued since then)
Thankfully, another inmate understood my predicament and supported me. When I say 'support' I literally mean 'support'…she held me up whenever I was feeling that 'Tim-ber!' feeling and I used her lap as a pillow as I laid on the cold, hard cement in all of my chains, in a dizzy daze on the threshold of nausea.
The room was spinning. There was a woman in there who must have been my age-all fun and laughs, though. She was extremely loud and aggressively flirting with every male who was in eye shot…nearly flashing them (apparently she has done this before because she was recounting past experiences at the same time). I must admit, in my nearly unconscious stupor at that moment, her crude behavior was at least fun-loving and she obviously meant no harm to anyone. She was just being exactly who she is, without shame. She is incarcerated alongside her own daughter and it sounds like they make the most of what life delivers them-in their own way. I make no judgement. Who is anyone to judge?
All I know is maybe if it weren't for this social anomaly in the room, I may not have been able to stay awake. Even as I paced and staggered in chains under the cool air vent, in an effort to stay conscious, she moved all over the place, rattled and giggled incessantly. At one point, she even climbed onto the toilet-sink counter-in all of those chains-and managed to tear a notice posted about not flushing anything but T.P. and she THEN used her tongue to write her inmate booking number using the red powder from the Kool Aid packet she had smuggled in…all for some very unattractive bald guy in the next tank who apparently gave her an interested 'looksie'…NO JOKE! A Deputy came in at that point (as totally shocked as I was) and berated her. She was not the least bit embarrassed and why would she have been? To her, the behavior was perfectly natural…quite entertaining in it's own way, too.
Right when I felt as if I just couldn't make it, I smelled the scent of candy in the air…sweet and fruity! Like smelling salts, the scent of candy on someone's breath instantly made me alert and then, right when I wished so badly I had one, someone gave me a green apple Jolly Rancher. Aha! I knew it was a Jolly Rancher! There is a scent that can only be that of such a candy! I enjoyed that intense flavor in a way I had never enjoyed one of those before and it kept me so awake. I vowed in that moment that when I got back to my cell, I would add 'Jolly Ranchers' to my commissary order form. I changed my mind later because I don't have a real toothbrush here and I don't want cavities…but I plan to buy them on 'the outside', oh yes. Oh yes. (tomorrow I am going to post what I wrote about a dream i had that very night...a dream about Elton John and his dog who was the exact color of that green apple Jolly Rancher...it was a weird but very great dream that was appropriate for that day!)
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An echoing chorus of conversation whips around this pod and amidst the loud noises of it all, , sometimes very profound thoughts are being conveyed…you have to observe, somewhere in between the "Like a mother fucker"'s and"Son bitch"'s, there is treasure. Creative listening around here can be like panning for golden thoughts buried somewhere in the Klondike mountain of 'Mother Fucker'! Heehee(o:
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