From Dragonfly: If Cement Walls Could Talk

There is so much that happens in a room throughout the day. The comings and goings. The food being cooked. The lockers being stuffed. The unauthorized friends coming for a visit. The naps. The snoring. The book reading. Okay, mostly it is just plain boring stuff. My room is filled with excitement right now, though, as Blondie plans to leave this place after about 4 years of incarceration. I wish her well and I'm excited to be cooking her last prison meal later tonight - cheesy rice, salami, with all sorts of spices and yumminess... plus fake doritos, and I'm still trying to come up with something sweet - it may have to be a bag of MnM's.

Every room really has it's own "vibe." There are rooms, like my former one, that are constantly on edge. By the way, my former two roommates are both no longer in my unit. There are rooms full of people having 'relations.' There are rooms where people sit on the bed all day doing crafts, and other rooms where there's no one there until night. We have rooms where there are people sniffing what they shouldn't be, and rooms where someone really needs a shower. We have rooms that have all institutional bedding, and other rooms where every bed is done in a different group of colors crocheted into blankets. Some rooms have bibles laying on their pillows, some the Koran, some a book of daily meditations.

Really, there is no way to compare the daily existence of a room to another one. We can all say that there are "good" rooms and "bad" rooms. Even with Blondie about to leave, my roommates and I fear WHO will be given her bed. Will that person kill our easy-going "vibe?" Will they be a night owl, keeping us up past our pitiful 10pm bedtime, and scream at us in the morning when we all get up? Or, will they have a girlfriend, trying to hide her under the blankets when a guard walks by? Will she be a loud snorer or will she scream at us for being snorers? There's always a couple days when someone comes into the room, where we need to assess the situation. We all agree that newbies are best - they can still be molded into good roommates. We don't want anyone too "institutionalized." Isn't that sad that we judge people before they even step one foot in our room?

For the most part, my room, surrounded by cinder block and cement, is really quite boring. We all pretty much get along. We are all looking forward to going home. We pretty much follow the rules. We take care of ourselves and each other. We share good letters/cards we've received, and laugh at a good joke. They listen to me as I read an important article out of the newspaper, and they share magazines. We share books and we talk about them when we finish. We share our sweets, our laundry times, and have each others backs.

I'm glad I was given this experience of a good room in Carswell. It certainly gives me more hope than my former rooms. Every room led to new friendships, though, so there's no reason to put down my former living quarters. It's just so nice to have a 70 sq. ft. place that we never fear coming home to and laying down for a nap. It's not home, but it's where I lay my head at night.