"If I clip my ear to the concrete block by my cell window just right, I can hear the sound of the ocean. The waves roll in gently, no crashing surf. Just a deep rumbling roar. Then as they slide back out to sea, the pebbles tumble against one another smoothing out sharp edges and mellowing. Sand makes a hissing noise but pebbles clatter warmly, like the clop of horse hooves on cobbles. From my prison cell, I hear the ocean, the Atlantic, gray, stark, huge, cold.

In the winter I would watch the icebergs from the far north melt into the horizon. Wearing thick, knit sweaters, hat and gloves, I would walk the beach. Dried sea weed, dead jellyfish, clam breathing holes, the dog woofing and leaping at impertinent seagulls who feared neither the dog nor myself. The wind biting my face. The driftwood twisted into thick banks of sand.

I walked from point to point, from the farmhouse of a friend and their immaculate vegetable garden that was bundled up for the winter to the ugly one-room diner at the other. It looked terrible (an unquaint shack) and it was closed; closed to tourists and passersby. But the ancient couple who owned the diner welcomed me anytime. The food was fantastic. Huge portions of homemade chowder and bread followed by slabs of pie from the oven with a mug of homemade cider.

By the time I reached the Redhouse Diner, I needed thawing out. The dog knew his way to the back door and was already whining and waiting with thumping tail. A Cabbage Patch doll look-alike in a faded cotton apron waved us in to the warm kitchen. She would say something that sounded like "Whoos-boat?" I would smile and confidently say "yes" without a clue as to what I was agreeing. The silence was companionable and infrequently interrupted with Mrs. Redhouse's thick mutterings and chortles. Mr. Redhouse's was "out'n bout fix'n som'at."

One year I was allowed to help him re-caulk parts of his fishing boat's wooden hull. I don't think I did much good, but seeing a wooden hull stripped to its beautiful bare bones left an indelible mark upon my imagination. When I dream of sailing adventures, it is never in a plastic hull. I can only see those finely crafted sweeping cures all fitting perfectly with ribs as lovely as a Queen Anne chair leg. A well made wooden hull combines all the qualities of fine furniture, architecture and sculpture.

Then fortified with a full warm belly, I'd return to the beach. Sometimes I'd catch sight of the breath spout of a distant whale or I'd look at the sky and be glad I was not on any of those planes going elsewhere. In prison I try to do the same thing, to appreciate that this here and now is my life and since it is my life, it behooves me to make the most of it rather than waste it by wishing / longing for something else. But every so often when I'm looking at the sunrise with my head resting on the concrete block, I hear the ocean and its tides pull me back to the winter beach.

People frequently ask me what I miss the most about my life before. Right now in this moment I miss the winter ocean of Nova Scotia. I miss the lavender and silver grays. I miss the raunchy seagulls. I miss the quality of solitude. I miss the chattering song of the pebbles. I miss unthawing in the Redhouse kitchen. I miss wooden boats and the beach at sunrise. But then I open my eyes and see the winter sunrise and the graceful silhouette of trees against the sky. Creation is beautiful; I am grateful to see it." (Elizabeth Haysom, Fluvanna Review, February 23, 2006).

Elizabeth Haysom is presently incarcerated at the Fluvanna Correctional Center for Women in Troy, Virginia. This column is one of a series, published under the general heading 'Glimpses from Inside.'