I despise Tuesdays. Everybody else hates Mondays, but I ain't everybody else. I can handle Mondays for the most part. I do not like or love them by any means, but I accept them. Mondays are a le sigh and admittedly sometimes warrant an exclamation of "Fuck" but they are at best a beginning, and I can generally rally for a beginning. It's new. It has potential. Monday, manic or otherwise, makes a statement. But Tuesdays? Tuesdays are the equivalent of being stuck in the middle of nowhere. It doesn't bridge anything like a Wednesday; it carries none of the collegiate party-startin' fervor/Cosby Show nostalgia of a Thursday; it is ash to Friday's freedom flying flame. And I dare not disgrace the sanctity of Saturday and Sunday with the mention of a day that operates a lot like that one relative you have but won't readily claim. My hatred of Tuesdays was probably borne out of some or all of the following:
- What to wear to elementary/jr. high/high school and work
- Inordinate exposure to enunciation-challenged people who blithely referred to it as "Chewsday"
- Lunchroom cuisine that was just downright shitty, a la "steak patty" with gravy, English or field peas, fish sticks, etc.
- Traffic being inexplicably congested and otherwise stupid
- Crap television programming
- The WTF realization that yes, your calendar speaks in text-ese you really do still have three more days until so-called freedom
About a month ago, after having one too many chats about how unfulfilling one's work generally is, I began to plan good things for Sunday evening to lessen Monday's blow. It has turned out to be such a swell diversion that I decided I should try the same thing for Tuesdays, with the catch being to actually plan something wonderful on Tuesday so I wouldn't spend the entire day cursing its existence. Last week I attended a Spanish wine tasting which delighted me, but I can't do one every Tuesday night because Wednesdays are enough of a hump without a hangover. I decided I wanted to do something useful and inspiring.
So last night I made my volunteering debut with Books Through Bars. BTB serves a terrifically helpful and refreshing purpose by sending packages of books to individual prisoners throughout the Mid-Atlantic region. Volunteers arrive each Tuesday night at the book-crammed A-Space in West Philly to read prisoners' letters and search through stacks and shelves of books to meet their requests. Because books are provided at no cost and at random, and the exchange of materials happens continuously, there's no card catalog or computer system tracking what's on the shelves. At first I thought, Good God, how am I supposed to figure out what someone wants when they request American history? But then, holding my first letter, I realized there's such a fun and surprising discourse that takes place when I realized I was allowed to interpret what I thought qualified as American history.
The premise of sending these books is to aid in prisoners' efforts to self-educate, so the majority of the requests are for dictionaries, thesauruses and reference books. However, with those requests come a desire to explore any and every subject. Last night I fulfilled requests for computer basics, the Qur'an, the Torah, witchcraft, tractor-trailer driving, web design, self-help and foreign languages galore. I nearly broke out in derivative-generating hives in the math section trying to fulfill one guy's request for calculus 1,2 and 3. In my note with the books I saluted his prowess and found myself reconsidering my aversion to the subject.
I have personal reasons which compel me to believe in a project this great. The willingness of strangers to connect with other strangers via the exchange of books is powerful. The rehabilitation speak prisons so often tout is quite often undermined, if not obliterated, by the tangled web of rules and regulations, privatization and subsequent corruption. It's not difficult to recognize how social and economic inequality lead to cycles of crime and incarceration, but BTB's mission is on point with what more and more people are acknowledging: education is a right, not a privilege.
The beauty of this program is everyone's willingness to engage in educational growth, and it's happening on both sides at various levels. Sifting through piles of books requires some thumbing-through which inevitably leads to a bit of reading and reflecting which leads to learning something new, and then you get to share that with someone else who'll hopefully reap the same benefit. I had no idea that gangster erotica was a genre, but I figured that out fairly quickly last night. I mean, errybody's got their somethin' but as long as you're reading that something then you're okay with me. The best thing about books is better than any box of chocolates--not only do you never know what you'll get, but you never know where you'll be able to go.
I was lucky to have parents who, in spite of financial constraints, made it their business to expose me to books. Not only was I read to, but I often had to read stories aloud because my parents loved the sound of my voice. (This undoubtedly built a solid foundation for my storytelling and writing abilities.) I remember my dad blasting my mom for the money she spent at bookstores and school book sales and on a set of encyclopedias, but he apologized and shut up once my report cards started rollin' in. He would give assignments based on me finding something interesting to tell him about something that started with the letter "T." A voracious reader himself, I remember how determined I became to find things that he'd never heard of or read about and how damn near impossible it became. Our mutual love of books and learning forged a timeless bond and understanding between us. It also imbued in me a sense of curiosity and imagination that has and continues to broaden my horizons. Books made me better; they let me become things, go places and realize early on that I am capable of so much more than societal constraints could ever even dare to inflict.
Thanks to the swiftly passing two hours of fun I had last night, the second day of the week no longer warrants my immediate, sustained disdain. In spite of myself, Chewsdays are now Choosedays--ripe with purpose and the promise both to learn and do something great.