Prison Tours and Ghosts

The amazing and wonderful women that we have been working under for the last two weeks, Polly and Renae, thanked us for a job well done (31,000 trees in the ground, here’s to hoping that most of them have a good fighting chance!) by taking us into Fremantle for the night. There we were finally faced with the monstrous Indian Ocean (and ran amuck in it for half an hour), took a tour of the Fremantle Prison (the oldest prison structure in the country built by convicts), and then hit a sweet brewery for dinner, Little Creatures.

No ghosts sighted on the prison tour. I was pretty sure there was major energy floating around the place though, through my fingers, around our curious eyes, the walls were seeping with it but I noticed only Polly and I touched the walls, searching. Polly sees ghosts. She has seen several. I myself may have seen several (how do you know if someone is a ghost, or is real?) and have definitely had ‘encounters’ but the only real time I was slightly disturbed on the tour was when the guide cornered Polly and I, along with 30 others, into the dead end of the Solitary Confinement building. Polly freaked out and then when she did, I did. We bolted for the door and stood where we could see the night sky. The energy in the building was thick with misery. You could feel it brush its soft tongue on your skin. The aboriginal people believed that all of their experiences—joy, pain, elation, birth, death—all of the emotions were tied directly to the land. Their spirits were one with those memories and emotions. That is why it has been so devastating for them to have their land seized by government. To live somewhere else means that they must leave their spirit, their energy, their memory and past and future behind. So think of all the energy retained in those prison walls.

90 days some men were confined, in total darkness, with only the three B’s – bible, bed, bucket. Some had a bit of light in the cell but with others the windows were blanketed over. So, 90 days in total darkness, with half an hour each day out into the sun. See, psychological torture is the kind of torture that scares me the most. Alone with your mind for that long, especially if you have a very active imagination (like me) would surely drive a person completely insane. Its no wonder that a lunatic asylum had to be built on the ground to handle all of the madness that emerged from those solitary cells.

Today we have off as we pack and pick up our belongings that we have scattered all along the place. But I do have some things I’ve been thinking about. Laughter in particular, and aloneness.

Something that a friend wrote recently has me pondering. She speculated that I am never actually “alone” on these work journeys; I am surrounded by students, and work, and others.

Friendships happen much faster when you travel without a solid branch of close compadres. In many ways I feel more ‘complete’ when traveling because there is no expectation placed on one another save for the telling of a good story, a few shared beers, and an easy good luck and adios for now. I find the parts of myself that I share with these near-strangers are often the most raw, the most hidden, even the most difficult. Then, if given a few days, I watch the friendship create itself. I have met people that surely are my soul mates, or were in a past life, or will be in a future one, but that, for now, I only have the glorious opportunity to experience for a short period of time.

Then, I been thinking about love, and do you notice how you can never describe the actual moment you fall in love? You can describe all of the exhilarating moments leading up to it, and everything afterward, but that moment, that second, that look, touch, glance, when you fall in love, is indescribable.

I realized how much I actually loved this group a few nights ago. We were sitting around the table having dinner, and laughing…about alpaca underwear and did they sell thongs? And many other tasteless jokes. Not enough can be said about the fabulous gel of a table full of laughter. I can’t remember when I laughed for so long, so hard. Its rare, laughter like that. Can you think of it now? The last time?

Then, back to aloneness. This aching realization that dwells just under the surface. Knowing that we say goodbye tomorrow, for good. Even though I have a strong feeling I will see a handful of these students again I could never say when, I could never say where. My younger brother is a teacher. I think this is the hardest part about teaching, saying goodbye, letting go. Starting over. Every day, it seems, challenges me to question, further, exactly who I am, where I want to be, I reflect on the synergy of human bonding, and also ways I can become a better person—friend, lover, sister, mother (of a cat). Right now I don’t have these answers but I am asking them all of the time and feel that, on some level, I am learning what I need to know.

I know this blog is mostly for myself, but also for my family and those few interested friends. Thanks to all of you for reading. I’m halfway through my work projects and tomorrow fly to Melbourne in time for my third project, down along the coast in a town by the name of Portland.

Laura