Letters Home

Last night I stayed up late reading a pile of letters I wrote to Survivor. I asked Survivor, Cashe, Traveler, and Sporty to provide me with the letters I wrote them while I was incarcerated. I want to add what I wrote here on here (where appropriate) because often my detail of life at Carswell was in a lot more description.

Putting pen to paper, and not having to pay 5cents per minute with a line of women waiting for the computers behind me, especially as things unfolded through the day, can provide much more detail of life at Carswell. Survivor's very first letter from me was not even a letter. It was a bunch of short comments spread along the words, "I'm ok" written giant on the paper. I think too much shock led me to not being able to put together real sentences and paragraphs. By the next day or so I wrote her a real letter.

My plan is to type the relevant parts of the letters into this blog based on the timing of the letters. On blogger, I can backdate entries. So you all know that there is a new entry. I will provide links in the present day to the new posts that are put to the day they were actually written in real time. I think that makes the most sense. 

One fascinating letter I read last night was during a long lockdown we had that appeared to be a haz-mat medical situation. I wrote the entire time and shared the information of what was unfolding as we were learning it. I'd forgotten about that day until reading that letter!

Another set of letters I have are more academic. I wrote them to Cashe and Traveler. I wrote more in depth about gender and sexual orientation issues and observations. I look forward to sharing these thoughts with all of you!!

So, over the next several weeks, I'll be starting that process of blog updating. l hope you all enjoy the new editions!! I know I went through some periods of adjustments here with my blog, but as you can see, I think I've found my rhythm again lately. I guess it was blog writers block. I'm back!!!!

A Halfway House for Freckles

Before parting, I asked Freckles to be part of the future of this blog. I wanted her experience in her HWH to be able to be here since my HWH experience was so uncommon. Freckles was part of the RDAP (drug and alcohol program) at Carswell and was then released to a federal halfway house for an extended HWH stay where she needed to do continued drug/alcohol check-ins and programming. It has been about six months and her first installment has arrived for the blog:

Upon arrival I was terrified. I'm not sure why all the housing is located in the ghetto's of each city but that is the trend, so be prepared. In my area, the house is located in a neighborhood that I have never frequented and for sure would never head into as a white female after dark unescorted. But unfortunately, each night after work I headed back to a crime ridden area around 9pm - very dark at that time in my Midwestern state and had to go to the door and ring a bell and wait to be let in.  Most of the times the staff is very prompt at buzzing you in - but there are instances where you will wait. While waiting, you see the blood stains on the wheelchair ramp where a former resident got beat and had his money stolen from him, you watch the drug deals go on right in front of your face either from car windows or half opened crack house doors. It's terrifying - thank goodness most of the other residents recognized what a "square" I was, and were there to protect me and help me adjust. Which to this day is the one thing I find amazing about this place - regardless of color, background, felony charge, or "class status"; most of the people are just "people" and willing to help you out when needed (even while nicknaming you Martha Stewart or the square).

I cried the first night there - wishing I was back in Texas. Yes, I was longing for CarsHell compared to this dump. I was informed by another female resident that this was a "trap" house. Well, apparently that is "ghetto slang" for a drug house. And that's truly what goes on - there are tons of people smoking K-2 (which is "fake pot"), alcohol is sneaked in or thrown over the fence on a daily basis so you have the residents getting their "drink on" and then you have the occasional resident who sneaks off to another major city or State to hit the strip clubs during their so called "working" hours because they have someone to cover for them.

I obviously got over the wanting to go back to Texas and realized the positives outweighed the negatives of the halfway house. I was now only about 30 minutes from home and much closer to family. I was allowed a cell phone, so could talk to everyone as much as I wanted or whatever hours I wanted. For the first week you are trapped there - no movement whatsoever except to go to their doctor for a physical. You are allowed visitors on weekends, my sister and mom only came once, due to the neighborhood, they were not coming back but I don't blame them. Before prison, I wouldn't have come back either - another humility lesson that only prison can teach a person.

But like prison, your "cellie" makes a huge difference, not too long after getting there, my "funky bunky" as I called her, got hauled off by the marshalls (what a surprise, haha) and I had the room to myself for a bit which was nice, but also a bit odd since I had just spent the past year with no alone time period. So adjusting to "quiet" and alone time were also big obstacles. But you get over it quick and sleeping in a dark, quiet room are very much appreciated!

My strongest words of advice are do not forget where you came from, because you can easily be put back there and also remember that you are still in BOP custody and while at the "half wit" house and BOP still stands for "backwards on purpose". I am still in custody and will be until 3/30. So I will keep sending blurbs regarding the transition that hopefully can shed some light on what to expect. I'm not trying to scare anyone, but be prepared for the worst, but make the best out of it. You're almost done with your prison ordeal and now is time to move forward and keep your energy positive and yourself focused....until later, Freckles.

As you can tell, Freckles can be a bit blunt. Gotta love her! She was my rock at Carswell and by far one of the smartest people I know. She certainly comes from a class privilege above mine, so she's experiencing things for the first time from a point of view that I think is valuable to hear from. At times it may sound like she's being judgmental, but the funniest thing is that Freckles is the person who makes friends with everyone and has the biggest smile and laugh and makes everyone else smile. She's right, though, they will make up names for her just because of her being naive. It's more in fun than in judgment.

I hope it's okay that I include some of her experiences here as she chooses to add to the blog. Communication restrictions make it hard for me to know much of anything, but perhaps this blog is a nice way of allowing us to stay connected through supervision. Feel free to ask her questions through comments as I know she reads the blog as well.

No Cake?

Being on this Whole30 diet this month means that we had some limitations on how to celebrate my birthday. For the first time in over two weeks, we decided to go out to eat, and struggle to figure out how to stay compliant with the confines of no sugar, legumes, dairy, or grains. We went to a steakhouse.

Turns out the need for "clarified butter" was no problem. They cook with it all the time. Ghee (or clarified butter) is dairy-free butter. So, I ordered a nice steak, veggies that were sautéed in olive oil and garlic, and a baked potato. 100% whole30 compliant. Sporty ordered Sea Bass and pretty much the same as my sides. It wasn't easy. Thier sweet potato was sautéed in brown sugar - nope can't have that. Their lamb chops had a non-compliant marinade. Even most of the salads failed the Whole30 diet. At day 15, we were not about to cheat on our 30 day elimination for one evening's dinner!

Sporty even had some Ghee in her purse, just in case the restaurant didn't have it. We sneakily pulled it out and put it on our potato.

At the end of the night, Sporty was upset that she couldn't provide me with a dessert. Desserts in general, except fruit, are not Whole30 compliant, but especially sweet tooth desserts. We looked up some possibilities of almost compliant desserts that Sporty could make us using compliant foods, but nothing seemed all that appetizing nor did I want them that much.

Truth is, I don't need a cake to feel loved. I don't need any gifts to celebrate my birthday. In fact, I like to give gifts to those celebrating with me. I'm just happy to be alive another year. I'm happy to be living a life of honesty and willingness and openness and recovery. 

I do not need to make any birthday wishes, I'm living my wishes. This year, I am going to unexpectedly have another Master's Degree, move into a new home (albeit rental), possibly officially start the doctoral program (fingers crossed), write my heart on paper, love children, hopefully get off federal supervision, spend time with those I love, and more! What more could I wish for?!?!?

So, no regrets of no cake! In fact, I was in bed by 10pm. I was exhausted. They are switching me from Enbrel to Cimzia, and time has lapsed between my last injection while I'm waiting for my insurance to come through on the new one. Typical! So, I got a good night's sleep.

Another good thing happened yesterday. I usually get a phone call on my bday from my mom that kinda goes, "Happy Birthday... Your card is in the mail..." Well, this year, she actually mailed my card a couple days ago and it arrived on my birthday. I was so happy that she thought about it in advance and mailed me a card to arrive on my bday. That was something special - and different! 

Lastly, I just want to mention how warm and fuzzy all my friends and family made me feel yesterday. I received texts, phone calls, and so many Facebook messages. Cake may feel warm and sweet momentarily, but the warmth and sweetness of the people who love and support me will last me all the way to my next birthday!!!

The Scariest Weekend and the Week the Blog went Down

As my birthday approaches tomorrow, it is taking me back to last year, being at Carswell, and remembering the scariest weekend I had while incarcerated. I did not fully write of the experience then. I did write a little about it after, but I could not write about it. My fears were caused by this blog. Well, sort of. Here's the full story...

The weekend was looking to be a good one. It was a three day weekend from my job in education, due to MLK day on the Monday. My mother and step-father were going to visit me on Saturday and Sunday. I planned to spend much of my actual birthday (Monday) with my friends at the Rec after having to move from 1South to 1North. Sure, I was incarcerated, but I had a lot to look forward to. There was a party being planned, a cake being made, and knowing my friends, I was going to even get a gift or two! Plus, cards and letters from home were coming in and I felt well loved and cared for. Prison is the last place anyone wants to be for their birthday, but as I wrote a couple days after the date here on the blog, it was by far, not my worst bday. I actually have some pretty warm memories of the day.

What I don't have are very good memories of other things from that weekend. It started just as I was about to leave work actually earlier that week. I happened to be alone in my classroom - which were the moments I loved the most. The quiet. They were the times when the students were gone and we were doing lesson planning and assignment grading. Some classrooms had several tutors in them. Sometimes, we were lucky and sat alone in a classroom. Quiet. Ahhhhhhh.

The classroom I was in at the time happened to have one of the teacher's offices located within it. Since it was a male teacher, if he was ever in his office, there had to be two of us inmate/tutors in the classroom so that it was not 1-1 with a staff/inmate. This was the teacher who I respected and he always followed the rules, so when he walked in the classroom to head to his office, I immediately stood at my desk to walk to another classroom to seek out another tutor to come into my classroom or to sit in their classroom (those are the rules). However, the teacher who I respected started to talk to me and said that he was just grabbing his coat and heading out (which was something he did quite often). So, I just stayed at my desk grading. As he started to head out of the back door, though, he turned to me and said, "so, Dragonfly Hazel, eh?" and I just froze and slowly looked him in the face across the room. I said, "is that a problem?" He just laughed and continued to get his things together. I walked over toward his office and asked again, "ummm, is it a problem?" I did not know if keeping the blog was going to cause me any trouble. I knew that I was not exactly anonymous with how honest about myself I was, but I did not know how it would go down since he was letting me know he knew about it.

The rest of the conversation went something like this: he indicated that I needed to make sure I continued to not use any real names. He indicated that I should be careful. He had this weird laugh that I couldn't quite get as to whether he respected what I was doing or he thought it insane or what not. After he left the office, I just stood there, not sure how to react. It was the first time anyone approached me in a kinda negative way about this blog and it was someone who had a great deal of power over me.

It perhaps was foreshadowing for what was yet to come as later the same week. Back to the Friday of my birthday weekend. Things were fine between the teacher who I respected and myself and I took the whole conversation to be a bit of a warning and a bit of an acknowledgment. At the time, I thought, somewhere in my ego brain, that perhaps that teacher had some respect for me too. It's not that I ever learned that he didn't, but as someone who was an inmate, we are all just inmates to the staff - even as tutors in classrooms, we were all just replaceable. In reality, they were just doing their jobs. I digress.

So, that Friday, I am heading into my unit after work and I get approached by someone I do not even know who starts yelling at me about this blog and that I am telling everyone's secrets to the whole world by keeping a blog while I was at Carswell. At 5' tall and round, I am an easy target and I have never been in a fist fight, so when people start screaming at me, I tend to cower. However, this person just starts going off on me about things she knew nothing about. I said to her that I do keep a blog, but I am not writing about other people's happenings in it, that that is not the purpose. It is about me and my journey and experiences. I do write about things I see, but I do not use anyone's names or anything.

Well, then in turns out that someone on my unit's girlfriend found this blog and the person was nervous that her secrets from within Carswell would be revealed to the girlfriend through my blog. So, rumors started to go around all of Carswell, but especially my unit - 1 South at the time, then 1 North (we moved on January 20th - the same weekend). One woman on my unit went room to room to tell them that I keep a blog about Carswell and the Unit, that I write about the women there, that I use their real names, and that I expose all their secrets. Literally.

Next thing you know, by Saturday morning, perfect strangers were walking up to me and saying things like, "hey, do you know 'dragonfly hazel'?" and I'd say, "yes," and they'd threaten me and tell me to watch my back and it started to get really ugly. This was really soon after someone I really liked had gone to the SHU and her best friend thought my blog had something to do with it. I mean, it started to get really out of control. I kept trying to explain that this blog was not at all about those things, but I was not necessarily talking to folks who wanted real explanations. My friends on the inside were scared for me. Braids and bandana were telling people to get away from our room. It was like I had to be "watched." I really started to believe I may be jumped.

That's when I made the phone call. I tried calling Traveler. She maintained this site while I was away. I couldn't reach her. I reached Sporty. I was hysterically crying. I told her that I was being threatened. I told her that we had to take down Dragonfly Hazel. I told her about all the threats, the rumors, the lies. Here, my parents were in town to see me, it was my birthday weekend, and I was constantly watching my back. People who had been my acquaintances on the inside suddenly stopped talking to me. It was really scary.

The people I was closest to stuck by me. They knew what Dragonfly Hazel was really about. They knew it was not just an avenue for gossip. They helped me still make the best of the weekend and my visits with my folks. After a couple days, the rumors went to another direction, but some of those friendships never recovered. People did not know if they could trust me. I took down this site on January 19th for about a week and did not write at all. It was a very sad week for me.

That is when I wrote the piece called "why I write." I had never realized how important this blog was to me until I was forced to stop writing it. After I was home and saw the messages from people in January asking where the blog went both in email and on Prison Talk, I realize that week had an impact on many people, not just me. I wonder if that week caused people to believe the blog stopped entirely or if people wondered why it abruptly went down. Well, now you know.

It was a hard decision to put the the blog back up, knowing that people within Carswell were reading the blog and not happy about it. In a short period of time, I learned that several CO's and even the Warden were aware of it. I learned that SIS was made aware of it - that's the FBI of the prison system. I heard through the grapevine that perhaps I was protected by my 1st Amendment rights, but I wonder if I wrote anything too controversial if anything would have occurred... At one point I heard that the education department as a whole was not happy to know about my blog, but then there was little they could do to me about it. The CO that was often in my unit made comments to my friends like, "I know she keeps that blog, she don't know that I know, but I know..." That was a common statement by staff and inmates.... "you don't know that I know, but I know..." when it came to this blog.

Funny thing is, by the second half of my time at Carswell, I just pretty much assumed everyone knew. When I was moved to the second floor room where I would remain until I left, all three of my roommates had already heard the rumors about me and my blog. One was quite upset when I informed her that the rumors were not true and that I was not going to be using her real name and would only use a nickname if she approved of it. She thought I would somehow make her famous - hahaha. Perhaps my talking about her here, now will do that trick - no, oh well!!!! Sorry Longwinded!!!

I distinctly remember those feelings of helplessness and powerlessness a year ago, though. I was proud that I stood my ground when approached by others, but was in a situation where there was no way for me to just show my fellow inmates this site and say "see, this is the site, these are the entries, I'm not talking about you in those ways!!!" I'm also proud of myself for making a very difficult decision to keep writing, because I'm not sure how I would have survived my time in prison without the ability to keep my blog. It gave me purpose. It was a purpose I did not even know I had and now I get to use it for research purposes that has potential to be useful by people who study criminal justice and prison issues.

I guess this post reveals something very important to all of you - my blog could not tell you all everything. Too many eyes were watching. I was not being paranoid, I was being told. This was especially true after my birthday weekend and the week the blog went down. Maybe I was not as strong as I wanted to be in order to write everything I experienced and witnessed. My number one goal was to get home. Every prisoner's goal should be the same. I can do much more from out here than I could from in there. I still have the memories, though. They will have a very hard time leaving my soul.

Losing a Couch

Back in my gambling days, my poor steering wheel used to get a real beating. Nearly every time I left a casino, having gone after I'd told myself I would never go again, and once again losing far more money than I could afford to lose, I'd start banging that darn wheel. How could I do that again? Why couldn't I just stop? What about my bills? How was I going to pay rent? How would I live til my next paycheck? Etc. etc.

I'd then start calculating how many times I visited the ATM. I'd come up with that magic number of the number of times that I withdrew money and the total I lost. I'd say to myself, "well, I lost a couch today..." In terms of the amount of money. I never owned a nice couch back then. I lost every one I could ever own in my dreams to the reality of gambling. I never had real money to do real money with. Sure, I made a decent living at time, but access to money was just a short jump to my next gambling binge. I lost a lot of make believe sofas!

So today, when Sporty and I went shopping for a new sofa, I was overjoyed to know that it was not a figment of my imagination. Our current couch is alright, but is not comfortable for our backs, which is especially not good for me and my need to have decent support. We set our budget, have the funds to support the purchase, and found several places to compare. 

All those times I lost a couch in my head, and thus was my first ever time shopping for a decent one. We found several decent options under our budget, so now we just have to decide which one. 

The new sofa is my birthday gift for later this week. I told Sporty that I don't want or need much of anything, but would like this for us all. I doubt it will be delivered in time for Tuesday, but it will be nice knowing that it's coming soon. Plus, we are officially starting our move into our new rental home in April and it'll be great there! 

I may have never purchased a real sofa in the past (my current one was given to me) but I've lost many through my mind by gambling. Now, I have the opportunity to purchase one for real for the first time. It may not seem like a big deal to some, but for me, I will cherish it's comfort!!