Jimmie Delgado, March, 24, 2013

Time: 10:44pm

Date: 3-24-13

Day: Sunday

Well it’s been quite some time since my last entry.  Why?  Hmmm, well it’s funny to think of it as I write and recall my last entry, or a little of it I should say.  See, I remember mentioning how I rarely received mail. And almost a day or 2 after I sent off entry I received a letter almost everyday after that.  And it continued each week, not as often, but still I received at least one or two letters a week.  Here’s what surprised me even more.  The people I received letters from are ones I haven’t heard from in years!  Some I never really expected to ever hear from and some that just fell a little behind in writing.  It was and is a great feeling not being forgotten, see it’s easy for people in the free world to say you are not forgotten or I still think of you.  But unless we can hear it we will never know on this side.  It’s crazy how mail can affect us.  I would have never imagined how much it does.  But it truly does help a lot.  As a matter of fact let me share a little of my perspective on what its like behind barbed wire and chained link fence, what it’s like to be in a cell….

Delgado’s Allegory of the Cell

You’re in a room full of darkness.  The only light you see comes from a crack under the door to the outside world.  There is a window, but the light that comes in is not the same as it is in the world. It doesn’t hug you and give you that warm feeling you get when you wrap your arms around one of your children. The wind that comes in is not the same wind that blows through the hair of your beautiful wife.

The stars at night are not the same as in the world.  They’re more like light-bulbs with a short in them that flicker into annoyance rather that twinkle with elegance.

As you look to the light under the door, you begin to see shadows passing by.  Those shadows are familiar to you.  They’re people you once knew in the world.  The crack limits what comes in and goes out.  You begin to remember all the people who told you,  “I’ll always be there for you.  I’ll keep in touch.  I won’t let you rot in that place.  If you ever need anything let me know.”  You begin to cling to these words as the names of those who spoke them come to mind.

You send out letters.  some all at once, others one at a time, all the while, while writing, you tell yourself in your mind, yes, yes, so and so will help me!  So and so will come through! but as the days and months pass by, you know this not to be true.

You feel forgotten.  As you look to the shadows passing by you begin to hear voices.  Those voices are the things you hear of about the people who would always be there, but just like the shadows, they just pass you by.

You sit and wonder of the world, you sit and wonder.  You sit and wonder of the world, you sit and wonder.  You sit and wonder of the world, you sit and wonder! You sit and wonder of the world…you begin to breath heavy as if you just ran a race, you mash your teeth and clench your fist.   YOU SIT AND WONDER OF THE WORLD, YOU SIT AND WONDER!!  you snap! no longer do you wonder of the world F.T.W (forget the world)!!  without a care in the world you become totally dangerous.

Others come to the very brink of the snapping point, but look up to find a stream of light descending like sand sprinkling down like a waterfall.  As it touches you you realize it’s not the same light as in the window or the crack under the door to the world.  See, the light of the world is like the 10% juice from concentrate, it has a lot of other things in it.  But the light that now cascades upon you is pure.

As you gain more of this light, it soothes you with a cooling mist.  It gives you love and joy.  As you continue and shower in this light, you are refreshed, you no longer need to shower only rinse yourself off from time to time.  You begin to sit and wonder of the world and realize, you wonder of the world too much.  You  begin to channel your thoughts and do what you can to learn and grow.

“Let go of the world and don’t let the world hold on to you.” — Delgado

It’s hard to imagine how simple things can affect us all in different ways.  Some things can make our day and others can have us G-5in the blink of an eye, so it’s good to have positive influences in our lives.  It’s even better to love and be loved.  And it’s one of the greatest feelings in the world knowing you are not forgotten and your being thought of.  When I write back, well I can write for pages on end and for hours.  So it took me a while to respond to all the letters I received.  I’m not sure when I’ll hear from some of these people again, so I make every word and sentence count.  Even if they don’t write back for another few years,  I enjoyed spending the time it took me to write them a letter.  And it gave me a big smile knowing they shared some of their time with me.  Well I guess I will end here till next time.  Who knows what will come out of this pen the next time I push it, but so far with just a few entries it really has let my mind free.