How Do I Celebrate the Holidays?

I don’t. Not anymore.

When you are incarcerated, holidays aren’t provided by a calendar. They are wrenched out of the jaws of a numbing monotony heavy with the potential for violence. Some people celebrate holidays when they happen. Many do not.

Did Sisyphus get a birthday when he got to the top of his hill? Laughing, middle finger extended towards the unfeeling infinite, he just marched back on down that mountain.

I once spread peanut butter across a state provided brownie and watched the rain fall outside through a narrow window in my cell. It was nighttime, and I was 8 months into a 2 year stretch in solitary confinement. It was my birthday. I remember seeing a tv thru a window across the way. It was too far off to see clearly. I remember thinking that whatever was on that tv was probably better than the white walls in my neverdark cell.

I remember this, too. “Happy Birthday,” I said to the rain, to the dark. To the tv and the walls and the unfeeling dark. Raised the brownie. Took a large, messy bite.

I was 36.