The Felonist

Coin in the Basket

The Felonist descends into a fierce stretch of spiritual wrestling, filling her journal with pages from Julian of Norwich, Bonhoeffer, Rohr, the catechism, and every scrap of wisdom she can scrape from the silence. She questions forgiveness, marriage, self recrimination, and the wreckage she has caused. She wonders whether suffering is love, whether she must carry everything, whether she deserves anything at all. Shame, despair, and exhaustion stalk her through the dorms, the chapel, the law library, horticulture, and the endless snow. She tries to hear God. She tries to forgive herself. She tries to understand why she feels abandoned. Letters arrive. Packages arrive. Women unravel. Bill pulls away. Grace grows distant. She dreams of Ireland. She rereads Bonhoeffer until her head throbs. She copies Julian’s promise that all shall be well, even when she cannot feel it. She fights the belief that she is evil, worthless, unlovable. She shovels and shovels and shovels, all while crying. She prays for direction, for mercy, for a way through the bankruptcy, the collapsing marriage, the future she cannot yet see. And then, in the middle of the grief and the static and the spiritual noise, one line breaks through: when you’ve hit rock bottom, your very next breath is a coin in the basket. Coin in the Basket captures a woman clinging to faith, discipline, and the smallest acts of survival as she tries to trust that even in the darkest stretch, all manner of things may still be well.

Just Believe, Just Believe, Just Believe

A long stretch of November days unfolds in fragments — coffee, cold air, chapel, work, letters, interviews, apples, snow, and the constant ache of missing the people who once formed the center of her life. The Felonist drifts in and out of herself, writing in bursts, disassociating in between, trying to stay upright inside a place that feels both pointless and punishing. She forgives everyone she can name, even the ones who broke her. She meets with the Chaplain, remembers the rape at Rikers, and feels something shift. Packages arrive, small comforts in a world of half light and arbitrary rules. Grace cries on the phone. Bill sends turtlenecks. Women come and go — Jen, Franny, Carrie, Walker — each carrying her own trauma story, her own unraveling. She reads obsessively: Lamott, Rohr, Julian of Norwich, the nonsense of The Hunting of the Snark. She pulls Tarot cards, prays for signs, for clarity, for a way through the bankruptcy, the marriage, the future she can’t yet see. She rakes leaves and cries. She dreams of Ireland. She wonders if she has been thrown away like rubbish. She tries to understand the IRS man’s strange kindness. She tries to understand herself. And through all of it — the snow, the sorrow, the synchronicities, the spiritual wrestling, the endless shoveling — one refrain keeps rising to the surface, the only instruction she can hold onto: just believe, just believe, just believe.

One Does What One Can

A stretch of days at Albion turns deeply inward as the Felonist immerses herself in Richard Rohr, Anne Lamott, Iyanla Vanzant, and Thich Nhat Hanh, filling her journal with the ideas that begin reshaping her understanding of success, identity, faith, and self worth. She wrestles with capitalism, patriarchy, white male hegemony and radical dependency while delving into the compulsions that once drove her life — to be successful, to be right, to be powerful — and begins to imagine what it might mean to let them go. She prays, talks with Jerry, dreams in symbols, consults the Tarot, and reads until her mind cannot absorb another word. And then Lamott’s story about a sparrow doing the necessary – “one does what one can” -- steadies her in the middle of everything she cannot control. One Does What One Can captures a woman trying to rebuild her inner world while her outer life dissolves around something as small and seemingly ridiculous as a forgotten christening dress.

Low Blow

In this episode, the Felonist moves through agrinding stretch of Albion life marked by sleepless nights, snoring dorms, denied programs, IRS visits, head colds, and the constant ache of missing her daughter. She studies charisms, dreams in symbols, fights for a non‑smokingdorm, and tries to hold onto faith even as doubt and despair press in. A move to a single cube brings a rare breath of relief — a part of a window and a bed with springs — but the emotional weight doesn’t lift. She reads obsessively,filling her journal with passages from Anne Lamott and Iyanla Vanzant as she tries to understand how she became who she is, and who she might still become. And then, when she reaches her lowest point, the divorce papers arrive. LowBlow captures a woman thinking, fighting, praying, arguing, analyzing, and writing her way through the relentless machinery of prison — only to be hit by the one blow for which she could never be truly ready.

Sad and Tired, Tired and Sad

In this episode, The Felonist moves through three weeksdefined by two words that echo again and again in her Albion journals: sad and tired. The emotional landscape is anything but quiet — it’s a storm of homesickness, spiritual doubt, poison ivy, sleepless nights, longing for her daughter, and the kind of heartache that spills into tears and curses hurled atGod. Yet even in the chaos, she keeps writing, keeps searching, and keeps trying to make meaning out of the ache. Sad and Tired, Tired and Sad captures the relentless internal war that prison ignites — a battle fought with tears, longing, fury, and the stubborn, involuntary resilience that keeps a person alive even when she can’t see a reason to be.