The Baked Potato That Taught Me Gratitude in Prison

The following essay, "The Baked Potato That Taught Me Gratitude in Prison" is written by Thomas Kosovich and appears on the Prison Writers website. Excerpts from the essay are included below.

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I sat down one night to eat a plain baked potato with just a little bit of salt on it. This turned out to be a moment that changed my life. It shifted my mental state irrevocably and gave me a life-altering revelation! Okay, so maybe I’m being a little dramatic and hyperbolic, but I did enjoy that potato so thoroughly that it made me think about those little things in life that become much more meaningful when you are incarcerated, with two life sentences and no real prospect of ever going home.

So how does the humble baked potato become such a treat? The potato is such simple and plain fare, a staple in most cultures, that you would think it would be the easiest thing in the world to prepare. But here, they usually have to cook way too many potatoes in not nearly enough time. And they’re using convection (air-heated) ovens, so the potatoes almost always come out undercooked. And if you have ever bitten into a raw potato, you can empathize with the utter despair of expecting some tasty morsel, but ending up with a mouthful of something that is at the same time somehow wet and chalky. It has a texture that’s crisp like an apple but also rubbery like an unripened eggplant. So when you finally get a potato that’s baked all the way through, it’s like manna!

As I savored each bite, I thought of how significant such a small luxury could become under the right circumstances. Everything else had melted away; the noise, the time, the stress had all disappeared. The cacophony of raucous voices outside my cell could not breach the doorway. I was no longer in prison; I was only in the moment. It was all so perfectly Zen.

I guess what I’m trying to say is, whether you’re a person trying to survive in prison or someone trying to make it in the free world, you shouldn’t neglect the small things. Pay attention to the world around you, enjoy the moments. Don’t let life just pass you by. There may come a time when you are unable to enjoy those little things. So take advantage of the time you have and don’t take it for granted. You may find yourself in a position where the highlight of your life is a well-cooked potato with just a little bit of salt on it!

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You can read the full essay "The Baked Potato That Taught Me Gratitude in Prison" by Thomas Kosovich, an incarcerated writer in New Jersey, at the Prison Writers website. Prison Writers offers uncensored, personal stories and thoughtful essays from incarcerated citizens across the country about what really goes on inside the secretive world of prison corrections.