Basically the whole tribe is on some version of summer vacation this week. We got Palm Springs… we got Santa Claus (Yes… it is a real place)… we got Spain…. we got Copenhagen. My people are out there livin’ and I love it. Throughout the week… there have been multiple instances where guys would ask me if I was getting a visit over the long holiday weekend and I would tell them about the crew’s adventures… and how these adventures are prohibiting them from coming to join me on my extended vacation at this private island. Without fail… the response was always… “Ohh man… I’m sorry to hear that… must be tough to have your people out there traveling while you are in here.” And each time… their genuine feeling of pity took me by surprise.
I have felt the exact opposite about their trips leading up to their departures and especially since they have been gone. Quite often… I have expressed my desire to “live vicariously” through their lives’…whether that be on an every day basis or something out of the ordinary such as a trip over seas. And while it is just “a thing I say”… I genuinely have this feeling of excitement when they are out there living life. And this excitement to be able to “live” through them living has only increased the longer I have been behind these walls. Something that I never took the time to think about… until now.
I guess this is a bit strange. I guess the “normal” feeling would be sadness or jealousy that I cannot be out there doing the thing that they are doing… experiencing life in the way that they are experiencing it… making memories and diving into new adventures. And… of course I want to be with them… more than anything in the world. But I know that I cannot be and that is just a fact that I have accepted. So the next best thing is them doing life and me receiving the gift of hearing about it on our calls and see it reflected in pictures after it happens. And… I could have stopped the thought process at that but I think it is actually something deeper…
I think the truth is… that when you “live” in such close proximity to perpetual darkness… having everything in your real life stripped away from you… it brings with it an undeniable proximity to the vibrancy of life. Waking up day after day… year after year in a concrete box is paradoxically followed by this intense pleasure of aliveness the moment you step out of the unit and the sun hits your cheeks. You feel the life of the ocean… the sway of the palm trees… the song of the birds… the quickness of the squirrels… the earth beneath your feet… everything is alive. Every where I look… things are living and I am among them. Since I have “lived” behind these walls… I have experienced this visceral… almost out of body awareness of the life inside me… my “true self” (if you will). The human being that I want to be. The man I want to be and then slowly becoming him by the force of wanting it. In the darkness… I find that I want to be a good man. I want to be decent and just and loyal and kind and dependable. There is this immense… macro quality to it. It’s as if “living” in such a dark place allows you to feel incredibly alive because you finally recognize what is valuable. Crisply and clearly… as if for the very first time… like a child… you love the best parts of yourself and the world. You love all that could be lost because you know what it’s like to touch that loss… it is no longer abstract. You learn how to live within yourself. Travel through thought. Love through imagination. Appreciate all the important parts.
And because I have this proximity to the shadows… which opens the door to the proximity to life. I think I am able to genuinely and wholly appreciate the people that I love… living life… without the clutter of needing to insert my own agenda into the equation. A ‘skill’ that I certainly did not have prior to my incarceration and one that I believe is very hard to acquire without experiencing darkness for yourself. But now that I have it… I really hope that I keep it because there is a sense of peace in just being happy that the people you love are happy… nothing more… nothing less.
So… as I wait patiently for our next phone call coupled by pictures of smiling faces in beautiful places… I am extremely happy to be “living vicariously” through my tribe’s adventures. And the cherry on top… this “skill”… of not actually doing but feeling the joy of doing… will definitely help with my limited budget on the other side of this thing… so that’s cool.
Stay Healthy. Stay Active. If they are good… We are good.