Waiting Room

An Excerpt from Prison. An Excerpt from the Universe.

So, I am sitting here…. in some kind of waiting room.

Only it’s not a waiting room per se.

I’ve been here before.

When I slow down my breath I feel it. It creeps up on me and stays at the back of my breath, like some kind of gum I used to chew as a kid. The one you’d roll out like tape.

I hear a man beside me. My eyes are closed. But I can feel his breath.

He calls me the N'Word.

The smell of gum goes away… now it’s just the smell of racism.

Prison is all racism — no gum.

But in meditation I sit here, this waiting room within me — it’s a different kind of waiting room, unlike prison.

But I can’t tell. Am I waiting for a doctor?

Am I waiting for a guard to come let me out?

Am I waiting for a phone call that will never come?

I can hear the cacophony of all these boys dressed in men’s bodies. They are also waiting — waiting for their drunk father’s to come home - or mother’s or uncles.

We’re all waiting. We are expired M&M’s in a broken vending machine.

But then I breathe, and I feel myself enter this other waiting room, — yes. This one I know, and it knows me.

I smell fresh grass somewhere. but it’s certainly not coming from inside this prison — Not in this concrete jungle.

My breath leads me deep down into the center of a heart that I’ve always been a part of, but rarely known. But now here in this damp, dark place, I’ve discovered it and it’s teaching me the most beautiful thing — to wait, and to be present.

In this waiting room the air isn’t stale, the walls aren’t white, and the lights aren’t fluorescent and charged with stagnation. No, in this waiting room there is a peace — the calmness of a cool winter pond.

Then the door opens. You ready? Says the voice.

But it’s not a doctor. It’s not a prison guard, or a judge to revoke my sentence.

It’s just me — my younger self. And he knows me.

Yes. I say, I’m ready.

Great, he responds. Let’s go.

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This is an excerpt from my journal when I was incarcerated in an almost all white prison. As a person of color, it wasn’t easy. But here I am now, the founder of a nonprofit, a spiritual leader, teacher, and counselor.

Are you ready to find your breath?

Come join me.

You can also support me by getting my spiritual memoir The Ocean Inside Me. Healing Racial Trauma.

The Ocean Inside Me

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I am so grateful for your support.

Truly.

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In Kindness,

R.G. Shore