I received a letter today. It was from an inmate in a “shit-hole” of a Japanese prison. That isn’t my word for it, but the word he chooses to describe the place he has spent 9 years and has 5 more to go. The letter was one sheet of paper that can be written on, cut, pasted and folded on itself so that it becomes its own envelope, too. As a result, he only really had a page and a half to write on. In that space he conveyed a spirit of optimism, and actual back of the envelope math calculating the time he has before he is deported back to his country to continue the rest of his prison term. He assures me that he is staying in great mental and physical shape, and then asks me for the request of three newspapers detailing the ongoing war in the Ukraine.
I want to honor the request but not at the cost of losing his faith in humanity, so I give him three newspapers covering the span of the war so far. I also include a personal note of the most recent hopeful developments and then bring it back to news of a smaller microcosm of life happening closer to home. His home being in a Chiba jail, and mine being in Osaka.
I tell him a quote I found on the Marginalian blogpost about Orwell’s Flowers by Rebecca Solnit.
If war has an opposite, gardens might sometimes be it, and people have found a particular kind of peace in forests, meadows, parks, and gardens.
Rebecca Solnit
Serendipity has cat’s cradled my day, I get the letter the day I read about Orwell’s garden and the septegenarian flowers that still bloom in a garden in England. This same day, I finish mowing the grass in my own yard and experience the peace of communing with nature in an unspoken way. From my time in the garden I learn from the grass I cut that it will only grow so tall if I don’t cut it. But those uncut blades of grass will yellow and wilt over time. In order to grow and burst green, they must be cut regularly. Only in the struggle I impose on my lawn will it thrive. And grow greater than the reseeded lawn of my neighbor’s yard.
In some small way, I see that weeding is indeed more important than reseeding. If you care for what’s in your garden, your garden will care for you.
The letter I write to him consists of a folded A4 sheet of paper. I try to cram as much into that limited space as possible. It’s a challenge, and I don’t know how it will be received, but hopefully there is something in those three newspapers that gives him some pleasure. I assure him that he remains in my thoughts and prayers, and his dedication to pursuing a better life has encouraged me to do the same. I have removed so much poison from my life, both the addictive material kind, and the destructive people kind.
I should really write more letters to people who I care about. Not just those in jail, but in the prison of every day distraction.