What I’m Not Learning

 The time has come when I have been asked to answer in writing that dreaded question. And as I attempt to type of all that out in this borrowed, unfamiliar laptop, I can almost literally see the questioning, curious, ‘Isecretlyhopeitsucked’ faces of all the judgemental people that I meet less than once a year – (elderly neighbours from several lifetimes, my parents’ friends of friends of friends and the various unavoidable second cousins. Seriously, these guys have wayy too much power over my life)

 “What are you doing in Manchester? What are you learning?”

 And while I’d usually try to attempt the type of astounding reply that would make them all want to be like me/make their daughters like me, I will attempt to not respond from that space this time.

 I’ve spent the last two months volunteering at the Manchester project of the Richmond Fellowship. They were first described to me as a ‘well reputed’ organisation that worked to provide supportive care to women with mental health illnesses.

 I can be a bit of a champion for the cause of women and everything(daddy issues plus pseudo-feminist influences in college) but I have to say that I was especially pleased to be associated with just about anything called Richmond. Its a rather posh sounding name I think. Richmond. tall, handsome, important looking Richmond, with his strong jaws and expensive, old fashioned coat, writing serious poetry.

 But work at the Richmond Fellowship had nothing to do with this intense, sexy character. It was simply another atypical Manchester red brick building that functioned as what is called a “supported accommodation”. Picture a semi swish Bangalore apartment complex(more R.T. Nagar than Lavelle Road), in which the women stay. Richmond Fellowship operates an office in the building premises, and provides services of various sorts(counselling, I need to check your fire blanket, etc.) to the 12 women that live there.

 On a typical day, Id stumble out of bed fifteen to twenty minutes post my intended wake up time and make my way to work in my awesome leather jacket, looking a bit dangerous. The first hour was a painful time in which my work counterpart Chelsie and I would struggle to look all busy. Often, Jane my solemn manager would walk in, just as I was saying inappropriate things to my charming, nerdy friend Pushparaj on Facebook. By mid morning we’d have had at-least two ‘brews’ (fashionable word for tea) and would have begun to start to think about whose lives we were going to change that afternoon. Or not.

  Each of  twelve women at RF had endured an incomprehensibly painful life. Nearly every single one had experienced prolonged sexual abuse as a child. Some had abhorrently abusive partners, others struggled with chronic addictions of every type, and most had spent a considerable part of their lives struggling to find stability.

 It was aphotic and unrelatable. Like the stories of the women in all the various horrendous Sidney Sheldons. Except life never turned around quite the same way for these women. And so I was eager to help, but was limited by own emotional ineptitude. I did not understand their world. Not nearly enough. Mine was a life of trivial concerns and mundane pursuits. I simply didnt get it.

 As volunteers, our role was to encourage the women to come out each afternoon and participate in the very exciting ‘activities’ that we had planned out for them. Arts and crafts one some days, relaxation and meditation on others, breakfast clubs and coffee afternoons and all the other stuff the cool kids never want to do.

 The activities, I have to say, were sometimes a bit of a fail..A Four people turn out was supposed to be an overwhelming display of enthusiasm by the ladies, the support workers would assure me. Often a relaxation class would turn into a Donna, Ann and Uthara drinking tea whilst watching Jeremy Kyle(who btw should totally date/casually hang out with Anu Malik) shout at people activity. But it was still all good. The joys of our job were in the little successes. It was when Maureen would laugh at Chelsie’s mentalman jokes, or when Ann would say that she enjoyed arts and crafts with a little more conviction, or when for just one split second during relaxation, Id see some of the women actually follow my voice to drop their shoulders, uncrinkle their foreheads and actually look quite still and at peace.

 The honest answers to the whole ‘what have you learnt’ is not particularly impressive sounding I suppose. All of our jobs were little tasks. The doing was the only end, and it wasn’t a perfomance.

 The joy I’d feel after particularly good days at work were of a distinctly different quality. It wasn’t pride and it wasn’t happiness.  I suppose it wasn’t really ‘joy’ either. It felt a bit like it was somehow only right for us to have been there, even if just for a while, doing what we could. It was alright to not  actually have a great big major learning. It was alright, for once, to not be so self important.

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~ by Uthara on December 18, 2011.