Alcatraz…what is there to say except that I’m glad I never lived there.  Such sadness in such an idyllic spot with views to die for.  Some did.

The cells were tiny, spare, hard.  The best ones had sunlight.  Solitary confinement cells didn’t have any light at all.  We got to go inside a solitary confinement cell while the guard shut the door with a clang.  Six or seven of us stood silent in the hot, humid total darkness.

Freedom makes a person smile.

So much tragedy here, the images are ghostly, faint, movie-like, and yet they were real.  Much is told by people that lived the story.  As one said, “Not much good came out of a stay on the rock.”

Still there were bits of beauty if you looked very carefully.  The color of a roof…

…the shape of a plant…

…the yawn of a bird.

This is an amazing place.  A place to take away lessons about resiliency and hope.

A place I won’t soon forget.