There is always gonna by this open door at the end of the day for you!
Storm, Tillamook Youth Correctional Facility, January 30, 2026
Driving through the Tillamook forest, I recognized the lacy bundles of moss hanging from tree branches looked like the net forms I have been drawing for the past years. Danny and I quietly digested the day of writing workshops with youth offenders at the Tillamook Youth Correctional Facility. Adam Carpinelli, the Executive Director of the art and music-based program Keys, Beats, & Bars generously offered one program slot a month through April to create an informal exchange between our PonyXpress writers and the younger folks who are figuring things out. We’ve spent the past few weeks preparing our presentation of the letters that our PonyXpress writers crafted. As I looked out the window, I welcomed the lush undergrowth of the ferns which brightened the close of a soggy, grey day. We were exhausted after teasing out a conversation that rapidly moved from “hello, my name is ..” to the feeling of living in a constant earthquake.
The correctional facility houses two sides; we started in the low-security work camp which prepares kids for their transition into the community. We entered through a secure passage common in most gated facilities and then walked up a path to the first building into a big, open day room with offices to one side, security to the right and a clear view of the dorm. The nine guys sauntered over to join us, gathering on a semi-circle sectional, a few pulled up chairs. We started with an icebreaker that asked them to repeat their names and to consider their learning styles. We heard from readers, tactile learners, visual learners, mimics, hands-on learners, and those who learn through mistakes. The guys at OSP had suggested that the workshop be divided into short sections, punctuated with conversation, keeping it loose and expectations low. Matt Reyes, sub-chief of the Lakota club, reassured me that we just be ourselves — I thought “Right Matt … teenagers are terrifying.” They aren’t.
We started with a recording of Theron Hall’s letter, asking the guys to write down a word or a phrase that they heard. Teaching alongside Theron’s easy voice gave us confidence. His prose is filled with conversational hand holds. After we played it, the room was quiet. I tossed out a few things that I heard to see if someone would play ball. Louder quiet. And so, I told a bit of Theron’s back story. He’d spent time in youth facilities, served 10 years in solitary at a Supermax in New Mexico, until: “Somewhere in the long dark, a switch will flip — not a miracle, not a movie moment, but a stubborn decision, made again and again: If I’m stuck with me, I will build someone I can live with.” Theron sticks the landing.
We pass out a pen and the letterpress-covered notebooks we’ve made in my studio. Next to a blank page there is a short passage from each of 15 letter writers. The book are to keep, write in, and so the guys flip through them looking for a passage that resonates. We begin a guided free write asking why they chose the passage and follow up with a question that they have for the writer.
Joseph: Letter to Younger Self
”It’s okay to have big dreams, but big dreams are aimless if your daily habits aren’t aligned with them. The truth is that life is an extended series of small, daily chores. These small decisions add up to define you in the end. Learn to make good small choices.”
In response to Joseph Lee’s letter, Chris wrote: “I chose your passage because I am trying to do this. I have my days mapped out generally, of course, because I am still a long way from [doing] every hour, but I have built consistency and health where I thought I would find home.”
Koyote: Letter to Younger Self
”I want you to know you are important no matter what those adults say. You have what it takes to become that person you dream to be … as long as you can say “no!” to those older “friends” who are already on the path of destruction. They only want to share their misery.”
Chris wrote: “Is there a way to say no to yourself because to me it was never the friends, it was me who chose the decision that would ruin my life. I dream to be a person who is able to stop walking the path to destruction. I inexplicably find myself with a need to share in my misery. I want it to end, but I am scared that I am a vessel with only misery and without that I won’t have anything to fill it with — a silly notion, of course, but the thought doesn’t change the feeling.”
Le’Var: Letter to Younger Self
”Move as if divine, move under the watch of your mother, your father and grandmother. Move in respect for the dignity of your family. Live and breathe this respect and love for yourself as I love you. As they love you.”
Matt chose the letter by Le’Var Howard, “because I grew up with the word love but rarely felt its warm embrace. I shied away when the one I loved most left me to find the world alone.” He asks, “How can you find a love for yourself and others when it is hard enough to love for the moments?”
Matt, a quiet giant, shifted the energy of the conversation as he spoke about the loss of his grandfather. We listened with compassion. As the session closed, we could feel that even the kid with the most distant face relaxed as we listened to one another and laughed a bit.
Across the yard, we entered the second, more secured facility into a large gym where twenty kids sat in plastic chairs lined up in two rows. We went through the group, shaking hands, saying names, repeating names in the echoey space. To stir up the energy, we made the kids create a half circle, pull closer. Where the first session came together with a gentler energy, this group was younger — some uncertain, some rambunctious, others locked in. They reflected a wise age range — young teens to kids 18 and over. Theron was our hero as his recorded voice warmed the cold space. When I invited response, Joe spoke right up saying that he heard “hopelessness” in the letter. We were off and running — in Theron’s words “purpose was oxygen.”
Aaron also chose Le’Var’s letter: “I chose this passage because I love my mom and my family. With the purpose of making my family proud, I will live a respectful crime-free life and make my family proud. A question I have: How long did it take you to realize the unconditional love in your family?”
Conversation always compresses at the end as we stand near the door. This is when participants gather the courage to say the thing, to shyly hand over the page, to express their appreciation. Tempest said hello and explained that they wanted me to know that they were listening intently though it may have seemed like they weren’t engaged. We bonded immediately because I too find closing my eyes aids me when I am concentrating. They expressed their appreciation of letters since they receive little correspondence, and then they handed me a neatly scripted response to Dustin Smith’s letter.
Dustin: Letter to Younger Self
“Realize that you’re amazing! You are smart, sweet, kind, and loving. You are a fantastic little piece of divinity that has infinite potential. You are literally made of stardust. You are not worthless or unloved. Quit telling yourself that lie! That stuff will eat away at you if you let it. Other people’s failures are not a reflection of you. It’s not your fault.”
Tempest wrote: “I see that. It’s hard to believe it, but I see it. I chose your passage because I continually fight myself to remember I am not my failures, nor what others think I am. I’m a great girl, stuck in a place that doesn’t recognize that, so I must remember on my own.”
We end the day where it started in the dayroom, our first group are at ease playing pool, talking on the phone. We are shown where they bunk. Handmade quilts cover the beds of those residents who are preparing to leave. Members of the Tillamook Quilters Guild have made them, a gift and an investment in their future. Something to accompany them when they walk through an open door. | TDS
What a wonderful workshop! What great work you all do. Thanks for getting these words out into the wider world.