The pink light of the sun’s rays stabilizes over the desert just as I form the hills, and shallow breathing from ascension, shoes Plated in a thin layer of dust. Everywhere around me, Santa Catalinas glows as if he lit from the inside, and their serrated edges feared by dusk, while the valley below extends indefinitely, the silhouettes of aloe vera fade in the shade. I stop temporarily, and let the silence presses it, only broken by the faint invitation to Burn Al -Sabbar. Here, surrounded by a large space, it is impossible not to feel the weight of what my brother – and the stranger, is the freedom that I carry in its place.
Christine Shinis
Christine Cheetness is a photographer, journalist and author. Her work focuses on communicating with culture and history through the visual world, which is evident in its books India patterns and Portugal patterns. Christine has contributed to The New York Times, Elle, Travel + Leisure, Domino, And more. From the summer in childhood in North Michigan, to the farmer and the coast at her home in New England, to explore Rajstistan’s culture with her husband, Vigay, who has the participation of this passion for discovering with her three children – Vigae, Vikram and Mira.
Two years ago, I unintentionally joined a vast and invisible network of travelers – six million powerful. We come from every walk in life, drive by car, training, bus, or plane to fill the distance to our loved ones. My private trip begins Rod Island And it ends on a drowning road on the outskirts ToxonArizona, where I visit my younger brother in prison. In America, the majority of prisons are away from the place where the prisoners – and their families – are at home. According to Prison Policy InitiativeMore than 63 percent of people in state prisons, they are detained more than 100 miles from their families In the federal prison systemJumping to 500 miles. For me, this distance extends over 2,500 miles. The physical distance confirms that the emotional isolation prison creates. The presence of families of his family in prison not only financially-at the cost of travel, lost wages, lawyers ’fees, phone calls for long distances, continuous financing costs for financing, the basic accounts-but emotionally, timers, dismantling family units, deepening a sense of infection and sadness.
My brother is 16 years old – we share the same parents, and I still remember the day when he was born, and the small weight for him in my arms when I held him for the first time. I am his older sister, and he is my little brother. Nothing will all change, although the time we participate now is organizing and restricting. Our visits are made on weekends, in a sterile room with chairs installed on the ground, under strict rules: no food, no drinks, no mobile phones, no dispersal. For seven hours without interruption, we talk. Through our words and memories, we go beyond barbed wire and armed guards. Together, we imagine a future that goes beyond imprisonment – what we will eat, where we will go, what will you feel again in the dear lakes in the summer in our childhood in the Middle West, together and free. These conversations, which were not broken due to the modern deviations, taught me the value of sitting with discomfort. My brother’s life will not be what we have imagined before, and we talk about it with an unexpected honesty. The most difficult moment is always the end of the visit. It was allowed with one brief hug before driving it away, and back back to the fading desert light – broken after it was fixed, and ready to start a long journey home.
Access to Toxon from Rod Island is not clear or inexpensive. Every time, weigh if I would go to Boston And the direct bird or I leave from our smaller airport, where I will have to contact it Atlanta. Should I rent a car or rely on Rideshare, knowing very well how difficult Uber gets a federal prison 15 miles outside the city? Then there is the issue of residency. Costs accumulate – this is on the assumption that the visit is as planned. More times than I am interested in dependence, I arrived at Toxon after a long day of travel, just to learn the prison in a closing position with the suspension of visits. Our family – my husband and three children, and I – spent a week of Thanksgiving Day there, plan to visit my brother on the same vacation and during the weekend before and after. Upon landing, we learned that the prison had been closed and will remain so throughout our journey. I have since learned to book recovered hotels and airline tickets, as well as a window seat on the return flight, so that I can cry separately.
On my first visit, I was fully expecting to resent the permanent sunny town surrounded by vast mountain ranges. Santa Ritas, Tucson in the city, and wonderful gold glow at sunset. How to dare to remain warm, bright and beautiful in the face of my sorrow. However, over time, the blatant beauty of the Sonorran desert captured me. Now, I look forward to these visits – not only to see my brother, who I miss him with an endless pain, but also to try this wonderful scene.
