Honestly it boils down to reparenting yourself & rewiring your own neuronal pathways & telling yourself a firm “stop” when you notice your mind slipping down negative loopholes & being present in the moment & enjoying being mid task rather than waiting for it to end & not thinking of inertia as your baseline and natural way of living
I had not touched a cat in 15 years when an orange kitten wandered over to sit with me in the grass.
"I had not touched a cat in 15 years when an orange kitten wandered over to sit with me in the grass one day. I was left without adequate words to describe that experience. It reminded me that I am alive. It instilled in me a raw, unbridled happiness that I had never felt before, not even as a child.
I have spent many hours with those cats, and still I am amazed at how perfectly they reject everything it means to be in prison. They are playful and unselfconscious, curious and silly, soft and cuddly.
Sometimes it is even more interesting to watch my fellow prisoners interact with our cats. All those hard cases doing hard time melt like butter on a summer sidewalk when they visit the felines, feed them, watch them chase the birds and bees, and when they make toys to entice the cats to play with them.
I don’t think about the past when a cat hops in my lap. I don’t think of what I should or could have done. I don’t think about courts or life sentences or parole boards. What comes to mind is peace, and a sense that everything is going to be OK. What’s in the past needs to stay there if I want to have a future, if I want to be grateful for today and for the fact that I am no longer the person I once was.
The cats, of course, already know this. They are gracious enough to spend their time with us so that we might learn, and so that we can enjoy a few quiet moments of warmth, softness, non judgment, and freedom."
[ID: Tags that read "#it's stories like this that remind the power and need for prison abolition #i was listening to a story about the power of ttrpgs in prisons #and it wasn't like 'oh wow.. the power of fun while in prison!' though it did bring that up #the gut punch for me was that the prisoners would rp being adults... like having relationships with people... paying rent.... living a life #because some of these inmates were incarcerated before they were 18 and had never lived by themselves as an adult #and with a 30 yo or even death sentence #none of these people would ever get the chance to experience that chance again #the story focused on a death sentence case #it was really fucking impactful for me". /end ID]
In the waking state @mysteryecco - Tumblr Blog | Tumgag
blakekathryn
kaledo-art
origamiaround
germansingergirl
