Hello. This is, “Gratitude.” Today is March 2nd, it’s a Monday.
Aside from my usual fare of reporting and exposing the Virginia DOC, every once in a while, you have to take a step back and take a look at the things that brought you to where you are. To begin with, this past Saturday, there was the documentary that I announced. Awesomely enough, two women who heard my report on Prison Radio drove from Knoxville, Tennessee to Richmond, Virginia. It’s like a six or seven hour drive just to see the documentary because they heard my voice– gratitude and validation, awesome, which leads me to thanking Prison Radio for making this platform available for those of us. There’s a long list of other people I have to thank, which includes a fine gentleman who works for Prison Radio. You’ll notice that I’m leaving everyone’s name out of this because I didn’t get anyone’s permission. There’s a wonderful woman in New York who is a phenomenal musician and contacted me about collaboration on music, and you can hear that piece floating around on the internet.
She also manages my Instagram, which is really awesome. There’s another phenomenal woman who does all my typing, so all the stuff that you see on my website, you can thank her for that. There’s also the gentleman who manages my website and puts that all up there, and you can thank him for that. All of that wouldn’t get where it was or be able to be moved from point A to point B without my mom and dad, who have been like rocks. My mom will answer that phone a dozen times a day, and it doesn’t matter if I’m screaming at her, crying, begging, or just having a good day like today, she will always answer that phone, so will my father. That extends to my entire family, both my children, aunts, uncles, cousins, who have all been there through this decade nightmare.
There are others, like advocates, especially the Coalition for Justice. And I can honestly say there are times when I’m not sure I’d even still be in this world without Margaret, who lives there, who works there, excuse me. Then there’s all the people who post my prison writing; supporters, Minutes Before Six, Prisonwriters.com, Prison Journalism Project, Justice Arts Coalition, Humans of San Quentin, on and on and on over the decades.
Then there are the countless others over the years who have written letters, who keep in contact with me, check in with mom to see how I’m doing. All of these people are part and parcel for my hanging in there, day in and day out. Friends of mine that I’ve known for 30 years who check up on my kids, look over my house, look stuff up on the internet for me so I can run a Dungeons and Dragons game. All of these people deserve heartfelt thanks and all of my gratitude.
That’s about all I have to say on that, because there’s not much more to be said, except for, thank you. My name is David Annarelli. I’m a contributing writer of prisonjournalismproject.org, davidannarelli.wordpress.com. You can find me on Instagram @david_annarelli and Google me for all the rest of the stuff. You folks have a nice day. Thank you.
These commentaries are recorded by Prison Radio
