Rock Climbing and Prison

Something was wrong with Hagan.

His grades were quickly falling. Easy assignments that he’d previously complete in almost no time were returned to me blank. One of the prison’s staff approached me and pleaded with me, asking me to talk to him before it was too late.

As our horticulture class ended that day, I told Hagan to stay after class. I excused my teaching assistant and we sat alone, soft sunlight filtering into the classroom through the razor wire outside.

I pulled up my Excel spreadsheet with his grades. We went through them one by one. At the beginning of the semester, he’d turned in every assignment, then about a month ago, the grade column went blank, filled with zeroes.

“Hagan, I’m noticing a pattern here. What’s going on?”

He sighed. “I’m failing I guess.”

I followed. “You’re right you are. I want to know why though.”

More sighs. “My sister visited the other day. Her wrists are covered in slash marks. My fiancée swallowed a bunch of pills and tried to kill herself. I realized that I’m not going to be able to do anything when I get out of here, that I’m a felon, that I can’t work anywhere, live anywhere, do anything. I’ve lost my whole childhood to this place and I don’t see a way out.”

I listened carefully, praying for discernment and wisdom. I knew what story I had to tell him.

“Hagan, you know I like to rock climb, right? Well, I got this friend I climb with, right? She’s an awesome rock climber, I mean fantastic. She’s so strong and don’t tell her this, but she’s a way better climber than me. But something changed with her recently. We’ll start these crazy climbs and she’s doing great, I mean pulling off just crazy moves that I could never do myself. She’s just gliding across the rock. Then, with no warning, she’ll look further up the wall and stop. She sees some move that looks scary, or she’ll look at some hold and think it’s just not good enough to hold her. And she’ll stop, and start to think, and then ask to come down. And I’ll tell her to keep going and sometimes she does and sometimes she doesn’t. But when she does keep going and gets to that point that she thinks is going to be really bad, something happens. She finds out that the hold really isn’t that bad, or that there was another hold she didn’t know was there, or that she doesn’t even need to use that chunk of rock and can just pass right by it. And then she keeps going and gets to the top and she’s done. And she feels great and is all happy and proud. Now, why am I telling you this story?”

Hagan looked at me like I had an extra eye on my forehead. “I have no idea.”

I continued. “Hagan, the point is, you’re going home one day. You have a release date. Some guys in here will never go home. This is all their future ever will be. You’re not one of those people. You’re going home. And just like my friend on that rock wall, you have no idea what’s ahead. Something might look really scary, or you might think that you don’t have the strength to get through it, but then you get there, and yes, sometimes you just can’t get past it. And sometimes you find you have the strength to hang on, or that there’s another way around, or that it really wasn’t that bad after all. But if you look too far ahead, just like my rock-climbing friend, you’ll stop and you’ll get scared. When you are climbing, all you can control is what’s directly in front of your face, whatever you can reach. You can’t change the rock that’s up above you, no matter how hard you want to or how badly you try. So don’t focus on what’s ahead. Just focus on what you can control. You get it now?”

He nodded solemnly. He’s only 19 years old but is so serious and introspective. He’s been locked up since he was in his early teens. A boy grows up quickly when he grows up inside a prison.

I dismissed him with a handshake. Two hours later, he knocked at my classroom door. All those assignments he hadn’t turned in were in his hands. I graded them in front of him. All those zeroes he’d previously earned turned to 100’s.

The following week, he approached me in the greenhouse. I asked how he was doing.

“Much better now. Thank you.”

I winked at him.

Anne Lamott writes, “In my current less-young age, I’ve learned that almost more than anything, stories hold us together. Stories teach us what is important about life, why we are here and how it is best to behave, and that inside us we have access to treasure, in memories and observations, in imagination. This is what I want to teach the little kids in my writing class, along with the most important thing anyone ever told me: Almost thirty years ago, when I called my mentor at my most toxic and hysterical, having screwed up as a mother, she said to me, ‘Dearest? Here is the secret: You are preapproved.’”

We are all preapproved. You, me, and Hagan. May we simply have the strength and wisdom to know it.

Thanks for reading.

Spencer