I wanna hold your hand

When you work with small children there is a magic moment you feel the first time a new child holds your hand. I never realized exactly what it was before, an acceptance, a connection, a moment of truth...a pivotal bridge when they realize grabbing your hand is in fact better then walking alone.

 There are many children I've worked with and spent time with and seen this phenomena over and over, and the beauty of it is that it is universal. Africa, Brazil, Europe, in the prisons, younger people and older...most of us like to touch hands. In the united states we shake hands for greeting, a high five for a good job, in Asia we put our hands together and acknowledge others with a small bow.

The other day a small five year old boy that is quite rambuncious and un-affectionate in many ways walked up beside me as I was ushering a group of twenty or so children to our next destination and out of what felt to me like no where grabbed my hand. He is a rough and tumble child, and for him to hold still, let alone grab my hand a hold it quite fiercely for the duration of a lengthy walk was something. I found myself not wanting to move to quickly or to slowing to not loose his stride, not wanting to talk to much or to little to disturb the contact. He didn't say that much in the walk, except I knew that our connection had been made and it had some how cemented in that moment. Towards the end of our walk another young boy came up to him and started yelping and hitting him in the back, and he said "Hey, you should hold Simones' hand, it feels good...and you should get it before someone else does, she only has two." It made me laugh but try to stifle my out burst as the other little boy grabbed my hand. We walked in silence, they were calm, I looked down at my hands and thought...you know quite often a small gesture is much more powerful then words. Use your hands, after all, you only have two.

Birthday Suit

The difficult thing about spending time with kids in prison is that you have to remind yourself as much as you love them, when they are released you will probably never see them again. There was a young man that I had become quite close to, primarily because he scared me, and I love a challenge. He was the biggest kid on facility, absolutely fierce for a 16 year old and had the energy of a wild tiger pacing in the cage at the zoo...ready to pounce from over boredom and rage that had been bottled up inside of him for years. He was veracious and always asked me about traveling and the places I had been and told me where he wanted to go.

On his birthday, he was being particularly difficult as many of them are, fits of rage, throwing things, cursing people out, and he went into seclusion not talking to anyone. When I found out what was happening, I asked if I could talk to him. We sat on the stoop in silence, he didn't yell at me, but he also didn't talk. Then, after what seemed like forever he lifted his head, staring straight ahead, still not looking at me and said "I was locked up last year for my birthday, and I promised myself it wouldn't happen again." I tried not to move, not to break the flow of his speaking, and despite my stillness I could feel the tears start to well up in my eyes. I thought about my own birthdays, full of family, friends, travel, loves, and how even in that fullness there could still be a sadness of being a year older and reflecting on my life and the choices I have made both for good and for hard. I can only image the pain of having none of that, being in a cell and reflecting on what got you there. He said "I want to travel, I want to get out of here a see the world, I'm gonna join the army and I'm going to see the world." "And, I looked at him and said, "You will, you will do all of that." "I'm going to go inside now" he said, and then he got up turned around and looked at me and said "Thanks Simone, I feel better." A few months later he left the facility, and I never heard a world of him.

I got a call a few weeks ago from a friend of mine who teaches drum classes in prisons, and he said "You're never going to believe who I ran into over at this other facility, I ran into your boy. He's in my drumming class." This was almost a year later, and I was in a combination of both joy to hear of his where abouts and also shock that he was locked up again at a higher security facility for a graver crime. So we made a plan for me to come visit, and surprise him.

 I was standing inside a large pen of barb wire, my heart pounding, I could hear it in my ears, I was nervous, I didn't know why but I was. Then I heard it, "Is that Simone? Oh my god it's Simone!" he was walking slowly towards me in his signature limp swagger with a pearly grin and he slowly leaned in to give me a hug and cupped my back with his big hands. I stepped back to look at him, he was older, he had become a man...stiller, more purposeful. Another few other guys came up and surround me and said "oh that's Simone, I heard about you." He smiled, looked away, and seemed embarrassed maybe both that he had spoke of me, and also that there I was seeing him locked up again.

The other boys left, and then he said softly"You remembered", and I thought for a moment and said "what?" And he said, "You remembered....it's my birthday, you came for my birthday again." I paused, I hadn't remembered, of course, but there I was a year later by pure grace, loving this boy on his birthday and telling him the world needs him. When I left he hugged me and said "One day I am going to travel with you, when I get out of here" and then held my gaze while our car drove away. I'm not sure what will happen to him, he's 18 now, no longer a child in the eyes of the government, a convicted felon. But, all I know is that somethings are meant to be, and when I went home I sent him a package with every map I had and a note saying "Go see the world, it needs you."

Love is patient, love is kind, and love don't take no shit.

I hadn't seen my prison boys for several weeks, and when I got there I was actually picked up, and moved like a football as many yards as I would physically withstand. The love that they share is more then I could ever express or deserve but I'll take it. There is something pure about the love that I share with them and that is why I crave it so much. With life threatening circumstances and trauma around the corner it is hard to get too far off track in pettiness.

But, what I really want to talk about in all this is how we heal. The process of healing, the process of loving which I have come to understand on a much deeper level then I ever thought I would. Love is patient, love is kind, and love don't take no shit. At times in my life I think I was afraid to hit the nail on the head because I didn't want to hurt people, or have them be mad at me, and there is something to be said for picking your battles, but in the long run you are not helping people by allowing them to spin webs of untruth. I am not afraid to have you (or your ego) hate me because if I continue to let you get away with this it is not good for you. Lying, cheating, stealing, you name it - in the long run it doesn't hurt me, but it would hurt them, and I had to call it out....and sometimes I was hated for it. Shedding light in sore places is never easy, and most the time people will want to tell you to shut the f*ck up, attack you, blame you, which sucks - but if you are doing it for the right reasons I say progress. I say push on...and there was never one time that I did that that it didn't come back to bless me, even if it was months or years later. You are never doing someone a favor by enabling them to do things that hurt them self and others in the long run, only to feel more at ease in the moment. Put your ego aside, and speak the truth for others and for yourself, for that is real love and how we all become better people.

Real Men do Time.

"Do you have a boyfriend?", one of several questions I get almost everyday at the facility, along with "How do you make your money?" and "do you give private yoga lessons where you put your leg behind your head?" To all of which I reply I can't answer that question. It's a challenge, a real challenge to keep your personal life separate with these guys for many reasons but the first is that they put them self out there. They share so much of them self,  which helps them heal, and it almost seems unfair to not be able to show them the same courtesy, but I have to maintain those boundaries.

The other day one kid said to me "I bet you used to date rich and famous guys, and now you're into gangsters, huh?" I laughed and shook my head, but realized in that moment he wasn't too far off. I thought about my real hero's Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Gandhi, and I realized they all have done time...and I see that many of these young men posses those same qualities. Fearless to face the unknown and to put themselves on the line for a truth that is bigger then the confines of society. Not doing everything in order to maintain looking good, or avoid looking bad to other people. Really battling their demons (and we all have them) be it addictions, angers, or fears. And, an emergence of a honest and real self that is not built on a lifestyle or network cushion, but a soul that can't be beat.

I wanted to thank you, for you to be the first one that I thank. I don't want to say that I couldn't have done it without you, this whole becoming a better person thing, but I couldn't have done it without you.