This story was told by a person incarcerated at Solano.
UCI: Well, how have you been coping with the with the crisis?
Caller: I haven’t really been doing anything differently than I’ve done before. I’ll go ahead, and I’ll say these things because these things won’t, they won’t allow me to be identified either, but I’m a writer. I write a lot.
So, with the books that I already have published, I have five nonfiction books published; I’m writing another book now. I guess I won’t say the name of it. I’d like to, but I won’t.
But I’m writing another nonfiction book. It’s a book of satire. It’s political, social, or religious satire. And since I’m already a writer, I’ve been doing that during the pandemic.
I have my wife ordering books for me, languages. English is my first language. I read, write, and speak French semi-fluently. I’m brushing up on my Spanish again.
So, I’ve been studying languages, and I’m 52 years old. I don’t look or act 52, but I’m concerned about everything now, concerned about my brain, which means it’s another reason why I’m studying languages so I can open up more neural pathways. And I’ve been studying about neural plasticity, just things that never mattered to me before, they matter now.
So, what I’ve been doing is I’ve been continuing what I’ve been doing in the past and then doing a little bit more of that. So, I guess the short answer would have been studying. The long answer is what I gave you.
Studying primarily languages. And then I’ve been studying some other stuff about certain aspects of science, things that interest me.
UCI: Thank you for that. So, what has been like for you to have reduced visitation and programming?
Caller: Well, I don’t really concern myself too much with the programming. I’m one of those types of people. I’ve been in prison almost 30 years.
It’s over 28 now. I’m into my 29th year, consecutive year, and I’ve always been, I don’t want to say, a loner, but I’ve been someone who has stood alone.
So, I don’t concern myself with programming and prison politics or programming that the prison offers unless it’s like a self-help group. So that hasn’t affected me one way or the other because I find things to involve myself in.
And as far as visits, there was a time where I used to get a lot of visits from a lot of different people. But I’m married now. I’ve been married for almost seven years, and my wife and I, this won’t identify me either, but my wife and I are from the Bay Area. But when I was in Southern California prison, I moved her to Southern California.
And then I got moved by a prison policy, a medical policy that made me medical high risk, so they moved me away from her to the prison that I’m at now, and I haven’t had any visits from her since I’ve been at this prison, even prior to the pandemic. So that’s nothing new for me. It’s no more over stress or strain, and that’s just how it is.
