The Monopoly Board - the genesis of our journey

Traveling the Monopoly Board –

          We both drew different purposes in life, that was a certainty. We couldn’t have come from different backgrounds and our relationship was as strong as it could ever be because we trusted each other enough to tell each other the truth and share the good with the bad. We were never lovers; we were always friends and as the relationship fostered, we eventually became best friends.

          As friends go, she drove her energy in a different style than me. She was the more eloquent speaker, the nicer dresser and the more progressive in ideologies and practices. Her head was filled with great ideas and mine was focused on visions that would merge our ideas as one and work on them together. This wasn’t a love affair of the heart, but rather, it was a love affair of the mind. We both loved challenges and we saw the same journey down the road, together.

           As time and space brought us together, we ended up being with each other a lot more time, than anyone could ever imagine. It wasn’t the work that pulled us together, but rather, it was the energy created that opportunity and occurrences. Like the magnetic forces of the north or south poles in life, we were instantly created into a dual role that carried with it some vision and insights on things that faced us daily and gave us a chance to develop the kind of strategies to make things better than making them worse.

          We went from “Go” to the Baltic and Mediterranean streets where the road was paved with cobble stones and houses that were near dilapidation and destruction. It was the worst of neighborhoods to journey and choosing to ride it out together, we endured the storms and adversities, that presented themselves in such potentially volatile and perilous situations.

Traveling these dark and narrow pathways called hallways of prison, we weathered every storm collectively and learned from each other the different ways of coping with matters so hard and complex to read or see. Barely meeting each other, and already finding common ground through either intelligence needs or operational desires, we bonded so quickly to present the common front of unity so that everyone around us knew we were a team and nothing could break that apart.

The ‘community chest’ was filled with hopes and dreams of others who broke the law the paid their retribution with time spent in hell as every person there had to pay his debt back to society and reparations were heavy and loaded for most. For many, the chest was a symbol of emptiness, as their families abandoned them after their trail that left nothing behind but a trail of tears.

As we moved down the streets of this establishment imposed ‘barrio or ghetto’ called prison, we learned a lot about each other’s ways and values of life. We spoke in unity and acted wisely. We listened and we learned together making us stronger day by day and smarter week after week. The journey down the purple colored highways were hard times for many and at the same time, it was a time of learning about each other.

We both had no taxes to pay as we earned what we reaped and lived our lives a very modest way. One could say that we had nothing in common but time would tell that we had more to share than just time and space shared in a very hellish hole in life. Even the journey through the light blue streets of Vermont, Connecticut and Oriental streets were not without incidents or worries. We fed from each other the energy needed to make things work better and without letting up on our goal to succeed in every endeavor and assignment given.

What was odd were the chances we took in our duties and work challenges that caused us to rely so much on each other. Chances, that could have brought us pain and sorrow, if either one of us missed the target of the day. Although we were both skilled in the verbalization of interpersonal communications, it was our personal belief that it was our credibility that carried us through those times where actions spoke louder than words.

We both decided not to board the Reading Railroad to other places or assignments, as it was neither the time nor the place to take a ride away from all the challenges brought forth to us by an establishment that was abusive and corruptive in nature.

Using us as pawns to bring a change to the environment, it was up to us to make it work or bring about a change that would give so many a new way of doing things and without so much trouble. What we did was better the quality of life for many and kept out the hindrance that have ruined many other lives.

You might say that working together inside in prison, we were just visiting, and never actually put in jail or taken prisoner. Although we learned the culture well, we knew that life had much more to offer than what we had at the time of the first turn on the board.

Totally at the mercy of the heavy metal gates that locked us in the hallways of hell, we were both confident that survival was an utmost priority and how we acted or performed as a team was crucial to our survival. This is where I learned the most about her; she had a heart of steel that never wavered under pressure.

Working together for about eighteen months, we came to the end of our new-found partnership, at the very first turn of the board, as I went away to find another challenge and took the road that gave me a western direction.

The train I took was the one that belonged to the ‘Pennsylvania Railroad’ as Isabella remained behind in the blocks of Virginia, states and St. Charles streets. Becoming a hometown girl to this neighborhood, she had much more planned than the works and project, we had done together.

From here on out for the next few years, we worked on different sides of the board. We stayed in touch and bounced new and old ideas back and forth off each other. The dynamics were very lively and every chance we had we met for lunch when the travels around the board took us to a common space like the ‘free parking place.’ It was a comfort zone, a sanctuary that was usually spent with a hasty meal of Chinese food or other kind of fast food that was built into our schedule. Sometimes, we made some small talk while other times, we bounced ideas for new project or ideas that were heavy on the brain.