Editor’s Note: In March 2010, we began posting the work of Enceno Macy, an inmate in a US prison. Enceno’s articles are sent handwritten, then typed and edited by a trusted editor. Comments typed into the response area will be sent directly to Enceno. Thanks for reading and for the warm response he’s received each time. –efc & ajp
by Enceno Macy
Beware of allowing a tactless word, a rebuttal, a rejection to obliterate the whole sky.
— Diary of Anaïs Nin, January 1944
The prison library for some reason does not have any books by Mary Higgins Clark, so I haven’t read any, but as an author she is impressive as hell. She is 83 years old and has written 42 books, every one of them a best-seller. She still writes one or two books a year and gets $4 to $5 million in advance for each one — pretty good for a former airline stewardess and single mom who got 40 rejection notices for her first story before finding a publisher.
Forty rejection notices! How does a person persevere against such repeated rejection? How does she maintain enough confidence to keep trying when one rejection after another comes along? And what an incredible rush when finally, against such odds, she was accepted!
Prison is of course the ultimate rejection by society: not only total physical rejection but also spiritual and mental abandonment, because the first and most terrible thing a prisoner is aware of from the day the doors clang shut is that to the world outside he no longer exists and is not worth remembering. From that moment on, prison by its nature is an exercise in repeated rejection. For most if not all prisoners, the pattern goes back to their earliest memories. How is it that some of us give in to the most common — even trivial — rejections, while others persevere and overcome them? I don’t have an answer to that.
Looking back, my own first rejections now seem innocent and inconsequential. I was black in a white, redneck school, I was big for my age, and slow and clumsy. Also, I was probably more immature than a lot of kids my age. Often I was the last chosen for teams and school projects, and being aware and hurt made me uncomfortable to be around. This limited my number of friends drastically. I didn’t understand that I was different and that people — especially kids — don’t always take well to the unordinary. Trying to make friends was difficult, and the rejections — frequently being excluded or made fun of — made me cry as a child. When I grew older and was courted by the football coach, it didn’t help that I refused because football was too violent.
My rejection potential certainly improved with my willingness and ability to get into trouble, even the most petty kinds. I began stealing, talking back and vandalizing at a very young age. Once I was labeled as that kind of child, doors began to close. Nobody wants someone suspicious or untrustworthy around. And now I see what a circular thing rejection becomes. Being excluded and told “no” happened so often that I stopped even trying to be good or wanting to be included. I discovered that being a criminal justified all the rejections: doing bad things made it okay if people turned their backs because I deserved it. On top of that destructive thinking, I actually wanted to be rejected, because having someone accept me meant living up to their standards and fulfilling certain responsibilities.
Now that I am grown, the rejections continue, and the worthlessness I feel from them is just as bad as it used to be. But unlike before, rejections do not deter me from continuing to try, and sometimes if you just keep going, miracles do happen. After nearly 15 years in maximum security prisons — 15 years without a single violent incident or any infraction more serious than mouthing off to guards — I qualified last year for minimum security status. I was moved to a minimum facility, but within a few months was suddenly moved back to a maximum security place hundreds of miles farther from home and family. The counselor tried to get me moved to any of seven minimum outfits, all of which rejected me even though I was the lowest possible custody level. It took ten months to get returned back to the minimum place I’d been, but even here I am denied access to certain work crews and classes, although I meet every qualification for them. Prisoners have no recourse against such arbitrary rejections.
At first, being moved to minimum seemed a mixed blessing. For one thing, it is very difficult to write as much as I used to. Minimum security is generally for short-timers and people whose sentences have only a few more years to run, and it is meant to give us some preparation for getting out. Unfortunately, budget cuts have now closed all other minimum facilities in the state, and all their inmates have been dumped in here at the same time that staff cuts happened. The result is massive overcrowding and elimination of most of the programs preparing us for release.
For me, the worst consequence is that in this place there are no individual cells; instead, hundreds of inmates are warehoused in airplane-hangar-like dormitories, large areas packed with bunk beds on all sides. This environment is very indifferent or even hostile to the solitude I used to enjoy in a cell. There I was able to spend hours alone to study, read, think and write. I could collect my various thoughts on a subject and shape them into rational scenarios and contrasting ideas.
In my current environment I am two feet away from strangers on three sides of me and one above me. Double-decker rows of loud, obnoxious, disrespectful, inconsiderate short-timers continue for 30 feet in each direction. All of their conversations with each other are loud, vulgar and lacking any substance. Some can be asked for a bit of consideration, but most of them receive such requests as a challenge to their manhood and take offense. Under usual circumstances I would not tolerate such a reaction, but for the first time in these 15 years I now have something to be compliant for. In December, I was granted a chance that no one else in my situation has ever been privileged to have.
There is a welding program set up here through the local community college. Unfortunately, I do not qualify for it under the grant that supports it, but the program is set up in a shop that has two positions available for non-student inmates. In December, I was hired for one of those positions. The job — caring for all the shop tools — gives me full access to the welding class: I can learn all that the students learn, and more. This is the first time in all my years in prison that I am learning to make something tangible with my hands.
It’s impossible to say how much this means to me. The attitudes and policies of the prison system and staff have consistently been that I don’t deserve a chance like this. So the job and the welding class are a big turning point for me. I have been given the chance the system denied me for so long, and now have the opportunity to learn skills that will contribute to my success after release. Even more important is that the instructor — a college teacher, not prison staff — trusts and believes in me to such an extent, an experience rarer than hen’s teeth in this environment.
It is hard to be turned down at every opportunity, especially when you see others who have ruined their own opportunities get second and third chances. It’s so easy to let rejection blot out all hope, to give in to feelings of inability and low worth, and many people give up trying even when they know they are skilled and able. Yet somehow an airline stewardess kept on trying through 40 rejections while others who could barely put a sentence together got published. Maybe sheer, bull-headed persistence can keep one going even when prison walls obliterate the sky.
It is hard for me to find words to express my gratitude for this essay. I am amazed how someone so far away from my world can have such a timely and medicinal impact on my life. I can only pray that the universe returns that gift to the giver. It is so very much deserved.
and enceno —
it is always a pleasure for me to have a hand in getting your words to the wider Planet Waves audience. you have a beautiful mind and spirit, and we need your voice. and by “we,” i mean nothing less than the whole world right now.
good luck, take care and know that countless people know you exist and know that you matter.
Eco11,
Eric found me in the dumpster behind Taco Juan’s. The stork went in to use the restroom and forgot me there on the way out. Talk about rejection.
Enceno,
Your writing is just so eloquent and amazing and speaks a universal truth that all of us have endured at some point in our lives, maybe some more so than others, but alas, we have all felt the sting of rejection.
I am so extremely happy for you and your new welding job! I feel that perhaps welding will become your meditation and will become you in such a way that you will no longer be bothered so much by the myriad circumstances of the system that are beyond your control.
You can control your hands and watch as they make inspiring shapes and forms now, just as you have with your writing.
Godspeed!
~elle
Enceno,
Welcome back. It’s been too long since your last installment. Thank you once again for the blessing of your masterful eloquence. Thank you for taking us along on what must have been a rather sensitive walk. Thank you for enlightenment and awareness on a subject often kept in the shadows or stuffed into an ill-fitting can. Could feel it, man. Will be feeling that for a while.
The quote from Ms. Nin was choice.
Jhonn Balance’s tribute to prisoners the world-over: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CA4nsWE7S1U
Not sure if Enceno can see it though. Good luck Enceno, and keep on writing!
Good luck Enceno!
You already have a heads up from Planet Waves about our greater pressing global issues and know how you too will fit in!
Make use of your creative imagination to get your through, however much longer you spend time in there.
But, make good of every opportunity afforded to you.
Blessed
Kelly
Dear Enceno,
Your inner light is glowing with mastery for sure. Your perseverance and hope against all odds is a testament to the human spirit we cannot put words to. I send the biggest hugs and unconditional love from my heart to yours. On some level, you are already free. No one can reject us if we believe we are good enough. The unfortunate fact is ‘they’ forgot to tell us we are good enough, no matter what anyone thinks, or what we did or didn’t do. YOU are enough, and your spirit has inspired a lot of others today. Your future is bright too. Thank you, thank you, thank you, sweet man.
Much Love,
Debbie
My violin instructor teaches at a juvenile facility. She said the inmates are all much better students than her regular high school age students. She seems genuinely happy with them and their interest in playing well. She calls it sacred, playing to achieve beauty. You are not rejected by her, and she is a master who studied under the most brilliant musicians in the world. thank you for the insight. I have a young extended family member headed to trial as an adult (15 years old), who wouldn’t be there if his parents had been parents. Children can’t raise themselves and learn limits any more than they can create sacred music without inspiration. Blessings to you sir. I pray your life is good.
Dear Enceno,
Wow, what a contrast between solitary (solitude) and suddenly being plunged into that group scene there. I really feel the rawness of making that trade-off, between sucking up that situation instead of objecting to it, in order to have the amazing liberation you’re experiencing in that class. Wow wow wow.
Among some of my friends, this all would be called “Mastery training.” So that is what I thought of when I read your essay/letter: This guy is taking on some serious, not-messing-around, Mastery training. Meaning, if you do this, and keep your spirit alive, and find ways not to be at the effect of those cellmates of yours, not to be at the mercy, inside, of all that chaos and the arbitrary injustice and cruelties……. you will really have a Jewel of Soul, and you will have built it yourself out of all of this.
Cheering you on.
Kyla
Dear Enceno,
Thank you for your remarkable “letter”. I’m a criminal defence lawyer, so I have deep empathy for what you are saying, and I’m so glad you have found the courage and ability to tell us how you feel.
You ask why some people carry on despite what seems like continuous rejection – this is a question that has been looming large for me lately. I think it goes to the question of “rejection” itself. Obviously there’s the cultural “norm” to consider. The rule of thumb seems to be that if you go against a cultural norm, that is what the group – any group – has accepted as “normal” practice (usually unquestioningly and complacently), then you’re automatically on the outer.
Sure, as you say, there are certain things that no group can possibly tolerate, hence removal from society. Once upon a time prison was about “an eye for an eye” – you made us suffer, we’ll make you pay. These days (at least here in Sydney, Australia), it’s seen (at least my lawyers and judges), as a place where a person can reflect and recalibrate. Educational programmes, music programmes, libraries, counselling – these are designed to offer a host of opportunities which many of my clients were unable to make use of on the “outside”, usually due to growing up in dysfunctional families, and often because the social services those families need in order to cope are lacking. Sometimes I think that it’s better for one of my clients to be in prison – where they’ll be fed, clothed, have access to an education, hospital and mental health facilities, gain skills (including social skills) – all of which will hopefully allow the client to heal and be strong enough to face what is in fact quite a brutal world.
It is unbelieveable that I should feel this way – I who expend so much energy trying to keep people out of prison. So often though, our hands are tied – the judges, the lawyers – all of us captive to the short-sightedness and political expediency of our elected politicians. It’s not criminal offenders only – think about it – single mothers, racial/cultural minorities, the aged, the infirm, drug addicts, divorcees, children born out of wedlock, children born in wedlock but who don’t fulfil the fantasies of the parents, high-achievers, low-achievers, greenies, vegetarians – you name it – the grab for power is like a steamroller – the great Leviathan – power at all costs. That whole notion “tough on crime” is such a load of bulldust – so often, politicians “criminalise” people so they can actually get their “quotas” of arrests and convictions up, in order to make it look like they’re being “tough on crime”. And all this while certain “legitimate” crimes – the appalling treatment of men and women (by each other), the appalling treatment of children (by their parents), the appalling treatment of the public purse (by politicians), and of course, the appalling treatment of the planet (by absolutely everyone!) is totally fine and dandy.
I think you’ll find that you’re not the only one out there who feels “rejected” – from what I see, everyone seems to be “rejected”. Just take the relationship thing for a moment – how many times have you heard someone say – “don’t go out with that person, you can do better!” Maybe, but how do you know until you try? And of course, once you try, there’s a lways a risk that the thing won’t work out – that the two of you will be unable to overcome your differences (it happens), and there you are: a failure. I’ve come to conclude that to care is to be by definition, a “loser”, and I’m quite happy to be defined that way – if caps fits, sure, but I’d rather still care, and approach something because I love it, or enjoy it, and be branded a “loser” than give up my love.
And I think therein lies your answer – why stick at something? Because you love it. Sometimes, the world’s not ready for what you have to give, sometimes you’re barking up the wrong tree (some “institutions” are so set in their ways that sometimes you have to go elsewhere), and sometimes, you get lucky and someone like Eric gives you a chance to have your say.
I’m what people call a “high-achiever” (as if it’s an illness!), and I really hate that, because it’s another excuse to mow me down when they’re feeling insecure, and because it totally fails to understand why I do what I do. As I expalined to someone recently I don’t do things to be a “high achiever” – I do things for love, and because I enjoy them. And my question to people is, when you love something, how do you behave? I’ll tell you how I behave. When I love something, I give it my heart and soul, and it does hurt when that love is not reciprocated, but does that stop you loving? Should that stop you loving? Dude, I love with the passion of a zealot – it is pure, and it is glorious, and I think anybody who loves what they do (which they do because they love – and how do you know you’ll love it before you actually get into it? You don’t, and it’s a matter of luck really – the thing clicks) feels the same way.
That’s why people keep going. That’s why one man’s “rejection” is another’s irritation, because if you really love that thing you’ve done, and you really believe that thing is of value, then you will find a way, and you will not take “no” for an answer – you’ll find the right person – you will scour the world if you have to, and when you find them, at that same magic moment, they will find you. And that’s when you feel like you’ve touched the Holy Dove.
Hang in friend, and thanks for your letter, and the magnificent quote. And don’t worry too much about being “rejected” – embrace the rejection – that just makes you normal (I know, horrible thought isn’t it?? Bleagh!)!
;0)
Indrani
Thank you, Enceno, for your deep insights.
Your comment “Maybe sheer, bull-headed persistence can keep one going even when prison walls obliterate the sky” reminds me of the instructions from a great Tibetan Buddhist teacher – Dudjom Rinpoche – about how to live in this world:
“Always keep a sky inside you”
This one instruction encapsulates how many Tibetans survived – and thrived – in chinese prisons. I met one of these lamas who had survived after 23 years of being tortured, beaten and starved and the light poured out of his face like a beacon yet he was simple, humble and kind.
Your reflection on why some succumb to darkness while others conquer it is a deep one.
May you find continued strength and wisdom.
Linda
Thank you, Amanda, for helping me to understand a little of contributors’ backgrounds.
I myself have a sister who was put in jail for being a drunk driver at the age of 58. In her 30 day sentence, she was raped violently and repeatedly, every single night of her imprisonment, as well as beaten -in Sarasota, Florida- and punished, also, for being white. Jail and prison seem to have their own “human rights.” Her “jailers” ripped up her written complaints to the warden. Of course, such treatments mostly reinfect a human with more poison. I am not sure my sister will ever be the same. It certainly did not help her addiction problems. She all but killed herself afterward. She has been in intense treatment ever since.
Likewise I am worried about the woman, currently, in Libya, who has disappeared in their prison system, after crying out for justice in the news recently.
Still, it IS helpful learning more about the various contributors’ backgrounds. I know next to nothing about you either. Please do share more. It deepens the conversation. Thanks.
Enceno….I really enjoyed this article.
So touching, so revealing and so spot on.
Thank you!
I picture you in your welding class, and it makes me smile.
Zoe
eco1 —
they are great — and relevant — questions. the ways people come to write for PW are varied, and i don’t know all the stories. i think most have begun as readers, became regular commenters, and then through conversation, desire, inquiry & dedication have become regular contributors.
as for myself, i began reading the horoscopes for a couple years, then started commenting on the blog, included eric on a letter i wrote to everyone in my address book about PW, and then he and i struck up a conversation. as our friendship developed, i began helping out proofreading voluntarily, then we hatched a way for me to help chelsea on the admin end, and eventually i started writing for the blog (and then writing for other aspects of PW).
there’s no one way to get involved, but corresponding with eric, demonstrating desire & motivation to write, some level of proficiency, as well as openness to rewriting/being edited, etc. are generally key.
with regard to enceno’s background, i apologize! i forgot to post the editor’s note we usually include with Enceno’s posts. i’ve added it. and here is the slightly more detailed ed note from his first post:
“Editor’s Note: Enceno Macy has been incarcerated in an American prison for 13 years, encompassing late childhood, adolescence, and young adulthood. He offers observations and commentary on current affairs and controversies from behind the wire of our draconian prison system. To protect himself as well as the innocent and the guilty from brutal recriminations, he uses a pseudonym.”
you can find more by him by typing “enceno” in the “search this blog” field in the right margin. he was introduced to eric by a long-time, trusted friend.
I’ve only been reading here a few weeks at this point. I would so much appreciate a bit of background on the contributors and how they are selected or whether they just write into Eric and/or that anyone can contribute. It seems, for example that, the tarot contributor (there is some information and a link to her website) and Len (I would be interested to know more) are on complimentary sides of the same thing. There is an awesome variety and contrast here. Today’s article is obviously from an inmate. What crime did he commit? What is his spiritual path? All these questions, answered, would add layers of healing and depth to these articles, knowing more about those who write them. Perhaps, as a newer reader, I am asking questions that the seeming regular readers/commenters already know. But I’d still like to know too. So many honest and heart-felt words from an abyss of stars…
And, this article: brilliant and humbling. From the fire (welding), rebirth.
“the rejections continue, and the worthlessness I feel from them is just as bad as it used to be. But unlike before, rejections do not deter me from continuing to try, and sometimes if you just keep going, miracles do happen…”
Magic. I am at a loss to find another word to comprehend what is going on when impossilbe odds are beat in a human heart and life.
Humilty, joy, gratitiude, praise…mixed feelings join when presented with such reality.
Hope, then. Hope. Maybe…just maybe it will also happen for me, and for you whom I love.
Thank you all at Planet Waves for publishing the news and commentary that you are choosing for us to read who want want want to set our sites to ” a future so bright, you gotta wear shades” (love you, stellum).
I think this is probably how we’ll get there.