Thoughts compiled from this year's work in University of Michigan hospital, working with patients and work in Michigan prison systems with the incarcerated.

In the context of a hospital, a person has suffered a physical impairment, causing a physical standstill. They must stay in a hospital because they are not well enough to be “in the world”. Some are actually immobile, paralyzed, broken bones, hooked to machines and IVs. Often, the incarcerated have suffered some type of emotional disparagement/polarization with their community. This emotional disparagement could be a mental disorder, the inability to cope with situations, the turn to vices-drugs or violence, the suffering of some type of abuse, or general anger or sadness caused by their lens view of themselves or their community. This has put them in a physical standstill, literally trapped behind bars in prison. And I think about people in halfway homes, and how they are literally at a halfway point, stuck between the standstill they complacently stood in and the greater rhythm of the world. Trying to find their way, or at least a way. Some questions I have recently been asking- how does a person live in a standstill, a place reeked with physical or emotional fractures. How do they continue to breath and sleep, to be aware of who they are, to have imagination, to find inspiration, to figure out how to leave this barren place? Did they reach this place because of a break down of themselves or is it a flaw of their community/society not adapting, not having a place for their physical and emotional strengths and weaknesses?