Diary from Inside
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People have given me the same advice several times: Write down what you carry inside. It helps.
I considered it. And hesitated. What good would it do to have the thoughts in two places, in my head and on a piece of paper? Would anything disappear from one place simply because it appeared in the other?
Then there was the thought that someone might find it. That the most private part of me would be sitting there, waiting for the wrong hands. That was often enough to stop me.
I would have liked to see my face back then, if I could have seen myself now.
I have always thought that if I am going to do something, I should do it wholeheartedly. So if I am finally going to keep a diary, the whole world might as well read it. Then there is nothing to be afraid of. Like spreading the risk in an investment portfolio.
Safe. A wise choice.
The original plan was to collect everything in a book and send it to a publisher. But the days do not stop while a manuscript is being considered. New papers arrive, new conversations happen, new thoughts take shape. The book cannot hold everything.
So there will be a diary while I wait.
Here, I want to take you into everyday life in Bergen Prison as I experience it. You will meet people, ideas, humour, frustration and attempts to make something good out of the time. Other people's private stories do not become mine to publish simply because we have shared a corridor. Names and identifying details must therefore be agreed upon or protected.
I hope you will come to understand more of what lies between the decisions. The things that do not have a box on a form: what a message does to a body already on alert, how a refusal follows you into the night, or what a good conversation can resolve before it grows too large.
That includes trauma and mental health. I want to write about difficult things without turning it into a competition over who has suffered most. Perhaps someone will read a sentence here and find a way to say something to a person they trust. Perhaps that will be the beginning of life becoming a little easier. If it happens, it will mean a great deal.
An overflowing dam benefits no one. When pressure is allowed to build for too long, it can harm people who bear no blame for it. That explains why early help matters. It does not relieve anyone of responsibility for what they do to others.
I believe more conflicts here could have been resolved earlier, with clear information, listening and practical steps. When I criticise a decision or a procedure, I want to show what the criticism rests on. Feeling the consequences myself does not mean I know the motives of everyone involved.
And then there is all the talent.
I have seen drawings and paintings in here that stopped me in my tracks. People with a way of expressing themselves that deserves a real opportunity to meet an audience. I have heard music and ideas that should never be left behind within four concrete walls.
That is why I also want the blog to be a place where others can create. Art and music can be shared through the contribution space, under a real name or an artist name and following review. I also want to explore an arrangement in which artists can choose to offer their work as prints. Before sales can open, it must be clear who owns the art, who gets paid and what production actually costs.
I already have a first design in mind: “Little Red Riding Hood in the Corridor” on the back of a white T-shirt, with the project's emblem on the front. The image on the back gets to travel out into the street. The people walking behind you are usually the ones with the most time to see it.
Someone else I spoke to imagined the design covering a wall. A stencil that could be rolled out and filled with colour. I felt a fairly immediate yes inside me. In a living room, a studio or on a wall where the owner has given permission. Art that gets to take up space.
I am not promising anyone a fortune. I want to try to build a real opportunity: an audience, a fair agreement and a product worth paying for.
For my own income from the book, the plan is 75 per cent towards savings for a home for my daughter and 25 per cent towards my own debt. Sales of other artists' work must have separate agreements and must not be mixed with my personal allocation or any fundraising for legal assistance.
The diary will also help people find what is already on the site: access-to-information templates, help drafting complaints, the book chapters, and the space for art and music. Perhaps someone will finally obtain their documents. Perhaps someone will find the words for a complaint. Perhaps someone will dare to show a picture.
And that is how the diary begins.
— Prisoner 260146