Report: Echoes from the Summer School in Rijeka

When I think of the summer school, I have the image of a sky blue broken anchor. It has been three months since I bid goodbye to the many relationships I began, yet, I haven’t been able to make sense of it. I came to the summer school at a time that I was struggling with my sense of home. I strongly believed that no one understands. It wasn’t that I did not have a place to call home, I had a place to go to, not a place to belong. I thought that going to an international space is just going to add to this sense of disturbance I already sat with. How would I introduce myself? What will I say to people? Will I be accepted? Am I intruding into a well-established community? Most importantly, will I find my voice? If I do, will I be able to tell my truth?

I realised that these are things I struggle with every time I have the chance to enter a new group. But more than that, I wondered if I expected to have this perfect host that would take care of me completely.

I fell back on what felt familiar. The venue of the summer school, Rijeka, reminded me a lot about the city I was raised in Goa, India, which is a harbour town. I also knew that groups have a duration of 90 minutes and I knew the structure of the day. However, I quickly found myself getting upset, why did we have to rush between venues? How can there be a miscommunication about timings? Why is the discussion group more like a median group?

As people shared stories about their lives, about the socio—political culture, about the matrix they come from, I felt overwhelmed by being present in a space where people could come together and speak with each other. Somehow, the themes of the lectures on each day seemed to seep into the groups I was a part of. It was reassuring that we were able to talk about the things that were making us upset and that the feelings were somehow contained.

One of my most powerful experiences was sitting through one of my groups crying for almost the entire duration and not understanding where this feeling was coming from. After much struggle, when I could finally put some words to my emotion, I shared that I was crying because I felt like I missed people that I never knew. The narratives people carried — their own and their ancestors’ – put me in touch with my feelings of belonging, love, rage, shame, anxiety, sometimes all at once. I felt like similar emotional experiences divide and unite us, in these rooms. I became painfully aware of how disintegrated my own lineage has been.

The summer school felt also like a place where conflicts could emerge and be spoken about. To me, it has always seemed a scary thought to express anger or feel offended by someone’s comments because you do not want to create a scene or be dismissed. I have made amends with that thought process, but it comes and goes. However, in the summer school, it seemed like people could dare to be misunderstood and have the space to clarify or assert their stance.

I think there was something about the theme of harbouring diversities that stirs the dynamics of inclusion and exclusion. I felt that I could resonate in one way or another with what was being said by different members in the groups almost as if different parts of myself were playing out. I realised that being together also means to hold each other in mind. I found myself being more aware of who was speaking and who was not, I recognised the value of a simple glance to communicate to another that they are noticed. This is something I carry into the group I co- facilitate in my organisation.

None of these realisations are particularly new but it felt years of my experiences were felt again over the five days. Every now and again, I find myself replaying one conversation or another and find that it holds an entirely new meaning for me. It feels much like the way I have come to draw the meaning of a family for me — a group that is difficult to be with, where your role changes according to context, that has conflicts and fights, but the one you know you belong to – it isn’t perfect, but sometimes it feels containing and that is good enough.

Swathi Prabhu
Group Analyst in Training
Clinical Manager Hank Nunn Institute, Bangalore
swati@hanknunninstitute.org