Lisa had once likened his cell in San Quentin to a monk’s cell in a state-sponsored retreat. She was joking, but he reflected on it again now. “It’s true,” he said. “It’s been a place to contemplate and study, to sit with all these new ideas and turn them around in my head and practice integrating them into my life. I never would have done any of that. I wouldn’t have looked at my past, that scary shit—I’d still be running from it.”