Thoughts on Home

Editor’s Note: In March 2010, we began posting the work of Enceno Macy, an inmate in a U.S. 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

My home is where I am. – Bob Marley

Soldiers and sailors dream of home, and from their songs and old poems so did colonists and pioneers. Some day a poet or song writer on a distant planet or terraform will write longingly of a polluted, war-wracked, strip-mined, uninhabitable home called Earth light-years away.

In a prison cell you think of things like home and no longer know what they mean.

I have settled in to my most recent prison, mentioned in my last article. But settling in is an ongoing process that is never completed in the system. Even with a life sentence you can never be 100 percent settled in or comfortable. The variables that can affect a person’s ability to adjust range wide. The possibility of being moved again – to a different cell, unit, complex or institution – is always in the back of your mind.

The move could be of your own doing, like being sent to the hole for some infraction, or it can be at the discretion of a resentful guard or sadistic administrator. Or maybe a snitch feels intimidated or disgruntled by your presence and uses his influence with upper management to banish you to the hole or to another prison. You might never know who the snitch is or that you intimidated him. Just as common is an officer that you have offended or angered who sets out to disrupt your comfort and moves you out of spite, forcing you to readjust. It does not take much to offend an officer. Most of them are so challenged intellectually they consider a prisoner who reads a book or even National Geographic a threat to security.

When you get to a new prison, complex, unit or cell, evaluation begins immediately. As I’ve mentioned before, prison is a predator/prey environment, so you must quickly identify those you will ‘run’ with: other convicts who have similar or comparable interests, backgrounds, ideals or maybe only have survival in common. Then you must identify those opposed to that group; they become the ones you watch the most (though you always watch those closest to you the hardest). Next you identify your boundaries: what chairs you can or can’t sit in, what tables you are allowed to sit at, what showers you can use and what phones you can call from.

Lastly, you identify the guards who work your unit. Understanding who they are and which is which soothes anxiety and allows you to begin being as comfortable as possible. Those who come in for the first time do not find comfort, and may never find it, but for someone who’s been in a long time, understanding these identities is itself a comfort. For lifers and other long timers, that comfort is about as close to a home as they’ll ever know.

I grew up with a home, but at one point I no longer considered it as such. I ran away and began to refer to it as “my mom’s place.” I am not interested in sharing specifics about my home life before it began to be “Mom’s place.” Some things are mine to keep as my own, a happy place inside. But it doesn’t hurt to elaborate that it was home because I didn’t know any different. It was where I felt safe and comforted by the love of my family. What I long for now is that feeling, but such security was due to being sheltered from the realities of the world: the naïvete and ignorant bliss of a child embraced by my mom’s affection and love.

Initially I left home because of my identification with urban/city life. I didn’t like the slow, hard-working rural environment and the lack of interaction with kids my age. After being in different homes and juvenile detention, I missed my mom’s place to a degree, but I had come to a different understanding of what home meant.

Home is a place you grow up wanting to leave, and grow old wanting to get back to. – writer John Ed Pearce.

My best friend often ridicules me in a joking manner to remind me that prison is not home. It is common to refer to your assigned cell as home, just as when you are at work, at a friend’s house or out having a good time, you might announce to the company that you are “heading home.” Similarly, I might meet my friend at chow and after visiting for the meal time, announce to him that I’m “going home.” He sarcastically asks how I got early parole, inferring that home is where we go when we leave prison. He and I never fully agree about the term, even though our differences are in jest. Behind the humor is a serious reminder by him not to forget where we are and that this is not what we are supposed to accept as our home.

“Home is where the heart is,” they say. Others may have different ideas of home. Maybe when you are out of the country, America becomes the home you refer to. If you were visiting another planet, maybe Earth would be home. Home means different things to a lot of different people. A good friend recently shared her life with me, describing her home as “a place to be afraid of, not a place where one sought shelter.” She had only pain and other negative associations with her home. Then I have a friend who lives a few different lives, each with a different girl and family. He finds a different comfort in each home, a place to sleep, eat and act the part of a different person to each girl.

Home … I can’t say where it is but I know I’m going home, that’s where the hurt is. – U2

What does home mean to you? For many I guess it would mean a combination of ingredients: comfort and shelter at the top of the list. No matter the domain, the personal items you surround yourself with and the positive things you find enjoyment and appreciation in can make any place a home, including the people it contains.

That said, it is hard to compare the ‘home’ I return to every day with the one most of you think of as yours. I am forced to share mine with someone I don’t know and may not like. The situation is much like a person married to an abusive spouse, never knowing if some unwitting transgression may trigger a transformation into a violent and combative alter ego. One day my celly might wake up with a different opinion of me or the world and attack me in my sleep or steal my few things. I’m forced to block out such worries and find comfort in every day that such attacks don’t happen. Not that I have anything of value to steal. The few personal items I have are very basic and of no sentimental value except for the letters and pictures I am blessed to receive from the outside world. My real home is a mind state which I try to make as comfortable and inviting as possible.

The state of mind I refer to is knowing what few comforts I can expect to have, given the variables in my situation, and looking for them every day. Of course I can never have my most desired comforts here, but I make sure to appreciate the ones I do have. This requires recognizing the options and being glad the negatives are not worse than they are. You keep adapting, always. That’s why scars happen: when the wound is fresh, it hurts to touch it, but the more it’s scarred, the more comfortable a touch becomes.

Compared to a prison cell, any old bridge or packing crate looks like a castle. It’s all a matter of perspective. So for anyone who may not have a home, or for those who take the home they do have for granted, I say count those options as blessings. Be open to the idea that wherever you are, whoever you are with, whatever material things you possess, home is what you make of it. Mansion or overpass, home is what you feel and how you perceive your environment. You are always welcome at home, so invite yourself in and find the comfort. If you can’t, you just might need to move out.