Getting out of prison, moving up
Part three, resurrection: Beyond probation, staying healthy, might there be a way to help other women facing similar challenges?
(Ashley Rorro, born on Cape Cod, now in her early 30s, served six months in the Barnstable County ‘House of Correction’ after being convicted of drunk driving for the third time. Her account of life behind bars, chronicled in the first two parts of this series — A Cape Cod Voice — highlights ways in which women in prison live with even more physical restrictions and fewer opportunities than men. She was released in March, 2018)
“When I first came out I really was numb, I had no emotion,” Ashley remembers. “I was happy to be out of course, but it took two or three months to say that I’d be happy to do this, or have a conversation with a girlfriend.”
Being a Cape Cod kid it was natural for her to leap into two summer jobs, but what she really dove into was therapy and meditation, as well as a line of skin care products she had been working on before going away.
“And I am incredibly lucky,” she says. “I had an apartment. I had a family for a support system. Not everyone has that, so I feel really grateful.”
Her three-year probation began as she started her sentence, so she had two and a half years left when she got out. That meant regular meetings with a probation officer, drug and alcohol testing. She had seen that a majority of the women in prison were there not because of an initial crime, but because they had violated probation.
“I was so scared to do something wrong that sometimes I’d go into a tailspin,” she remembers. “I was afraid every day. I felt that because I went away once, they could easily do it again.”
She felt no support from the officer assigned to keep track of her, summing up the relationship in one word: “Fear.”
One of her biggest challenges was, and remains, how to ensure that alcohol won’t destroy her life – again. She knows the structure offered by Alcoholics Anonymous has helped many, but it doesn’t seem right. “It doesn’t need to be AA,” she says. “I need something more spiritual, a more holistic approach. I’m not really an AA person.”
Her slow path back has included an intensive combination of therapy, meditation, and a decision that she was ready to take a big step and open her own storefront, offering a public face to the health initiatives she has been pursuing. In February, 2020, she leased a retail shop just off Main Street in Orleans, creating what she hoped would become a little sanctuary to sell natural cosmetics, other natural products, and become an avenue “for women to take control of wellness, practices integral to my own health getting out of prison.”
“Cure Wellness Collective,” she decided to call it; might as well just say what it’s all about.
Note the timing – COVID struck less than a month after she signed the lease. She opened anyway, in June, and the pandemic created a huge challenge but she’s sticking with it. Sometimes the path seems clear, sometimes less so, but at least in one way AA and its mantra seem to apply: One day at a time.
A crucial day arrived last September, when she returned to court to ask Judge Robert A. Welsh III to end her probation after two years, one year early. The district attorney opposed, but she had support from her family and boyfriend, and a lot to show for the time since she was released. The judge allowed her request with a simple charge: “Don’t let me see you here again.”
“I think the judge was incredibly fair,” Ashley says. That set her to thinking about what more she could do to turn her dark experiences into something positive:
“I want to offer a wellness course to anybody who’s getting out (of prison) and looking for something rather than just ticking the boxes, maybe something to help. I’d love to be available, be an expander, offer it for free. Provide a list of services, a podcast, do meditation one on one. I just don’t want people to be chopped off at the knees.”
She knows she doesn’t have the academic credentials required for a formal counseling practice, but she feels her perspectives and experiences give her strength and credibility.
Might Judge Welsh think an idea like this has merit, that there could be room in the formal structure for something “alternative”? There was only one way to find out. She began composing him a letter, turning ideas into words. Here are some excerpts of her draft:
I’m writing you this letter from inside the wellness shop I opened just a year ago on Main Street in Orleans, the very town where I was involved in a horrible drinking and driving accident that resulted in my spending six months at Barnstable County House of Corrections. You very fairly presented that sentence to me on my 30th birthday, and today, amazingly enough, I can say that I am actually grateful.
I’m writing to express my gratitude, and ask for your advice and perhaps help with a proposal for how I might be able to support others facing some of the challenges I have experienced.
…
Within the last year, I have built a community of strong women who practice daily meditation, I run yoga and meditation workshops, I launched a wellness podcast, and last month launched my pride and joy; an online meditation and journaling platform. Meditation changed my life … The practice helped me become a more mindful human being. The practice made drinking and driving, not respecting myself and going to jail completely NOT WORTH IT.
My point in writing this letter is to thank you for being so fair in my sentencing and express my gratitude for you recognizing that I am human, and humans make mistakes. I have the utmost respect for you and vocalize that to anyone wanting to know more about my story.
I also am writing because I want to offer this meditation course as a free tool to inmates leaving jail who may be looking to begin wellness practice of their own. Maybe this course will help others to start exploring more holistic ways of healing instead of reaching for a substance, drinking and driving, or maybe worse. Again, let me emphasize I see this as a way for me to give back, without financial compensation.
Do you see an opportunity for something like this to be a resource and referral?
She kept revising, then addressed the envelope and sent the final version to the court earlier this week. She hopes Judge Welsh might see merit in her offer; she has confidence in his judgement.
And she has growing confidence in herself.
NEXT: WITH A NEW CEO COMING, THE CAPE COD CHAMBER OF COMMERCE TURNS 100; THE PATH FROM FISH AND FARMING TO ‘RURAL SEASIDE CHARM.’
ALSO NEXT WEEK: BARNSTABLE COUNTY SHERIFF JAMES M. CUMMINGS SHARES HIS PERSPECTIVE ON ASHLEY RORRO’S.