One of my favorite books is The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. The title alone has always felt like a teaching. Laughter and forgetting arrive together. Myth says laughter gives the mind wings; it lets us lift off the ground of our lives for a moment. It doesn't erase what hurts, but it loosens its grip. It makes a little space.
We get to work. We do not, in fact, throw away her overflowing stash of plastic spoons. We box them. “The institution ran out of spoons once,” she reminds us. “Girl, that was not pretty.” Mostly, she sits and pulls out photographs, old letters, little folded notes that once came tucked into commissary bags. She reads some aloud, sings along to half-remembered songs from the radio, tells us who is who in each picture. Rachel and I scrub and sort and fold and stack while she narrates. There’s a sweetness to it that I didn’t expect, a softness about her I hadn’t noticed. She is letting us into her world the way she can, and the way we can receive it: side by side, hands busy, past and present spread out on thin prison sheets. For once, she’s quiet. “They like the show. They like what I do for ’em. But me?” She shakes her head. “I don’t know if people even see me.” As she talks, it’s as if she is removing masks that she wears. I see a wise woman underneath. “Wait a minute,” I say. “This is you. This is who is in there.” She smiles. “You knew that, didn’t you?” “Yes. But one can never be sure.” For a minute, we’re two women from the same weird spiritual army, both undercover. “Soon as you walked in here.” We both crack up. Some kind of soul recognition—when you spot the same flame in someone else. Later I asked how he knew. He rolled his eyes. “Please.” Same principle. Different costumes. “Don’t tell nobody, though,” Janiya says, leaning back. A second later, she’s at Nevaeh’s bunk again, stirring the pot, making jokes, ignoring the volleys of “girl, shut up!” that greet her. And before long, the whole row is laughing. Even the ones who swear they cannot stand her can’t hold back their smiles. One of my favorite books is The Book of Laughter and Forgetting by Milan Kundera. The title alone has always felt like a teaching. Laughter and forgetting arrive together. Myth says laughter gives the mind wings; it lets us lift off the ground of our lives for a moment. Angel’s wings, dakini’s flight. It doesn’t erase what hurts, but it loosens its grip. It makes a little space. In a place like this, space is everything. When the officers walk through, they see a loud girl who doesn’t know when to stop. A problem. A disruption. A write-up waiting to happen. What I see of Janiya is a kind of jailhouse jester. The trickster in lashes and cornrows. The Rolex ho with the wide-open heart. The one who chooses, over and over, to risk being ridiculous rather than let any of us sink completely into the silence. She’s not here to be nice. She’s here to make sure we’re still alive.
