Happy Mentorship Month

January is National Mentor Month!

And I get to celebrate. I am an “official” mentor through Sponsors Mentorship, an exceptional  program that matches community members with those recently released from prison. This simple, person-to-person, let’s-have-a-cup-of-coffee, let’s-take-a-hike relationship is, in Sponsors’ words, “an affirmation of the belief that there’s no such thing as a throw-away person.”

Re-entry into the “real world” is extraordinarily challenging for those who have been behind bars, especially those incarcerated for many years, even decades. Re-entry goes far beyond the definable challenges of finding housing, finding employment, meeting probation provisions, staying clean and sober. It means, for those away for decades, entering a new world, a swipe and click world they know nothing about, a world of people walking around staring at hand-held devices they have never held in their hands that perform functions they didn’t even know existed.

But the underlying challenge of re-entry is even more formidable. It is learning how to unlearn the institutionalized self. That’s the persona, the attitude, the language–verbal and body—the way of relating, of being, that an imprisoned person adopts to stay sane and safe. It is functional behind bars. It is dysfunctional in the world outside.

My new book, coming out in May, A Grip of Time: When Prison is Your Life, is about what life is like when that life is lived almost entirely behind bars. It is what it takes to live a life of meaning in a place devoid of meaning. It is about guilt and shame and the possibility of change and forgiveness. (It’s also sometimes funny. Really.) The book is based on my three years of facilitating a writing group for Lifers at a maximum security penitentiary, working with men convicted of murder and sentenced to life in prison. I teach them how to craft stories about their lives. They teach me much bigger lessons about hope and fear and trust, about what matters and what doesn’t. To learn so much about life from those who live such a constricted version of it is an extraordinary experience.

My next book will be about re-entry–thus my new involvement with Sponsors. Ninety-five percent of the men and women we imprison will be released someday. Last year more than 650,000 were, including my mentee. I am learning from her what re-entering the world means. I am learning from the compassionate, clear-eyed, deeply empathetic but completely professional people at Sponsors what it takes to make successful re-entry possible.  The Mentorship Program is one small part.