This essay is the first in a series about traveling after confinement. Look for the next one this summer.
The day after leaving prison, I inhaled ocean air for the first time in eight years.
I’d decided to take a barefoot walk down Ocean Drive in Miami, passing vendors selling handmade wooden bead bracelets and blown-glass bowls. Bikers and roller skaters were cruising the beachside promenade. Reggae music from a nearby bar floated in the air. Carrying an oversized mojito in one hand and a churrasco skewer in the other, I gazed past the strip of white sand, dotted with umbrellas and sunbathers, towards the Atlantic—the same water I’d grown up swimming in during family vacations at the Jersey Shore. The ocean’s edge has been a sanctuary for me since childhood, always drawing me in to splay my toes across the gritty, cool surface strewn with black-stained jingle shells, tan whelks, and chips of horseshoe crab shells. I need the sand and the ocean like I need air and food.
But it didn’t seem real to me now, being completely free in nature.
When I was arrested for property crimes in 2014, I was living in north Florida. Before that I lived in Philadelphia, my hometown. But my prison, Everglades Correctional Institution, rested 30 miles west of Miami—a city I had never visited. The yachts and nightclubs of the coastal metropolis had felt a million miles away, but somehow the stories I heard about fresh mango juice and the Latin Quarter always made it seem welcoming.
In this way, traces of Miami had reached my prison. I would watch the Miami Dolphins play on Sundays. Through the window next to my prison bunk, I could see the fireworks shows on holidays. And Miami locals would tell me of their favorite restaurants, the music scene, and the city’s celebrities. Juan talked about his Uncle’s Cuban coffee shop on 6th Street. Garcia loved the way the bay smelled after a storm came through—“like a fishy heaven,” he’d say.
During my eight-year prison sentence, I dreamed of visiting this vibrant, multicultural city. And on New Year’s Eve 2022—one day after I was set free—I finally did.
***
My last day at Everglades started like every other during my roughly 3,000 days of incarceration. I was startled awake by a loudspeaker and siren at 4 a.m. and told to prepare for chow. Impatient prisoners lined up for food and gang gossip. Fights broke out. I felt the stress of living in a constant state of heightened situational awareness. Beige concrete walls and steel bars had colored my life for so long. I was anxious to return to things I barely remembered: the sounds of a violin, the smell of fresh laundry, the taste of Dr. Pepper. But six hours away from being released, I felt unsure of how I was going to re-acclimate to the world.
I sat on a metal bench in the prison’s TV room watching TMZ and thought about the decisions that had brought me here. When my pain pill abuse was at its worst, I committed property crimes to support my addiction. I never realized how much it would cost: freedom, dignity, respect, love. I hadn’t seen my family in a decade, but I was excited, and nervous, to be seeing them soon—and I knew I was the only one going home that day. Through the barred window were glimpses of the Everglades swamp, with myna birds and snapping turtles feeding just outside the prison gate. I waited to hear my name and Department of Corrections number called to signal my release.
