Lifers

I was brought up to understand that there are good people and there are bad people. It was always very black and white. A bit like coffee in the Barker household. You can't sit on the fence.

There are those that live within the law, and those that break it.
Then it's jail.
Do no pass go. Do not collect £200. You're done.

Which is ironic, considering I was living in a house built upon shaky morals and interesting manipulations of that very concept. I think good and bad are perpetually open to interpretation and generally twisted to fit our own morality. These things change over time and evolve, shaped by the situations we find ourselves in.

I was a bad egg.
I was the apple that fell from the tree, undoubtedly said apple from the garden of Eden, that lead to the downfall of two virtuous souls.

Such things will happen if you pluck the unwanted puppy from the pound.

I grew up in awe of the powerhouse mother, the champion of women, the career woman who had it all.
The looks, the family, the house, the job, the car, the dream really.

It occured to me as we approach another International Women's Day, is it our mothers we gravitate towards and when asked "who inspired you?" are they the first people we think of?
For me, yes.

What about for others like me?

For people who lived their lives the wrong way, but didn't know how to flip it back to the right way?
Or for those of us who were so set against living the right way, that we hurtled down the road to ruin never looking back with ferocious determination to set the world on fire.

Every day I get my coffee from the same place, I'm a creature of habit as you all know, and if the coffee happens to be good - well then you've got me for life (ask Sarah!)
But more than good coffee, I'm drawn to this place, like it's my own personal Mecca.

You place your hand on the glass door and feel the irony of cold glass, and wonder how many people touch the windown pane and expect to see and feel iron bars.
I feel warmth, I open the doors and in the vast open space, there's women dotted around, like little worker bee's in a hive, busying themselves with one task or another.

I have been coming to this place for some time now, and there's always one smile that radiates across the room - her name is Chrissy, and she is sunshine on a rainy Manchester morning.
We have got to a place in time, where I don't need to ask what I want, and she has already hit the coffee machine to make me a hot cup of loveliness.
General chit-chat ensues - the british banter, the origianl banter, good lord, I hate the word banter, I sound 100 years old whenever I use it, and whilst seeing it on my computer screen, I find it all the more cringeworthy. I have been teaching teenagers too long.

Who is this woman? How did she get here? Why is she always so damn smiley - the weirdo.
We have an affinity you see; she's the baker! She's the super star cake maker. How could I not be drawn to such a gem?

So this International Women's Day I decided I would write about Chrissy; because every year I write about who inspires me, motivates me, who has made an impact on my life, and I can safely say that in 2019 - it's this lovely lady.

There is a not so subtle question that mars the life of any exoffender, people don't ask "how are you?" "who are you?" - they always, without doubt ask "what did you do?"
I hate it.
So I don't ask - the differene being, Chrissy tells, and the fact of the matter is, I don't care. Who am I to poke into her past and the roads that lead her here? Does it change how she cheers up my day with coffee and cake? No.
I think what inspires me about the girls who work at The Clink Cafe is that they are so happy to do so. We as exoffenders exist with the noose around our neck, for life, we are lifers. We carry the guilt and the chains that bound us, forever. Don't kid yourself in your millenial world that beacuse the prison gates and the probation centres are long gone, that we forgot what we did and we are free.
We are never truly free, but it is our ability to look forward that sets us apart from the stereotype.
To hope where there has been none and challenge what the world and what we ourselves think about who we are and who we should be.

These women work HARD. Every single day. They work with grace, and kindness, and honour. They take pride in every single thing that they do, and they never ever take such opporunity for growth for granted.

That is what International Women's Day is about for me, it is women seizing the opportunities they never thought they would have, and holding onto them, nurturing them, like a little plant in the spring, it grows, and evolves into a life.
An opportunity becomes, a life. A future, a hope, a way forward.

There is a strange vein of thought in this country that people who have been to prison don't deserve opportunity and second chances and it fills me with sadness, which was once upon a time, rage.
These are the people who write on forums and article comments, about leopards not changing their spots, about an exoffender cafe serving up porridge. The uneducated, ignorant masses that shout "Count your change!"
Fuck you.

I asked Chrissy what she wanted to be when she grew up - she tells me she wanted to care, for children and the elderely, and that she did, and the look of happiness and nostalgia on her face tells me it's a dream that she remembers fondly and achieved.
This makes me happy.

When asked as a child what I wanted to be when I grew up, I would tell people that I wanted to work at TGI Fridays - obviously. That was a job that came with a jazzy shirt, a sash, reward badges and ice cream sundaes. Much to my mothers despair. A privately educated Cheshire girl does not work at TGI Fridays; she eats there and make sure no-one sees or hears about it, and for the love of god, orders the salad and not the fries.

I think about my own mother; not the Cheshire powerhouse, the cockney criminal. The biology that coarses through my veins and I sigh. At the ineptitude of her. At the lack of care she gave herself and power she gave others, to just fail. To give up and give in and become everything the system said she was. She's no Chrissy that's for sure.

Chrissy's pride and joy is her daughter, and that beautiful look of pride shines from her face as she talks about her, about her passing her driving test, getting a job, for just being downright wonderful; this Chrissy credits to her own mother. Her inspiration. Her International Women's Day wonder.
A trio of women working together, in different moments in time, supporting one another through the rough, the tough, the good and the bad. Regardless of stints in Styal, they pull together, a fusion of love and hope. This is women. This is solidarity. This is what we are. Together.

Women have the inate ability to champion one another.
Whether it be baking cakes at The Clink or sending love heart emoji's via social media to rally one another.
We are love. We are kind. And we are in this together.
We are Chrissy. We are women.

So as I sit here and type a little story of a woman I met, who makes my life a little happier, I urge you to do the same, spend a minute today and feel grateful, feel pride, feel love, for yourself and for the women who make you great - go one step further, thank them <3 I'm sure they feel the exact same way about you.