​An extract from a group report

 

The short poem 'To Speak' by Denise Levertov describes the effect of talking about difficult feelings, and kept us occupied for half an hour, especially with B's experiences of trying out the Church of Scientology, while H mentioned that there are a couple of things that she has never told anyone in her life, and wondered what it would be like to tell someone. An interesting discussion!

 

The story, 'Commission' by Tim Winton, tells of a son seeking his long-lost father, at the request of his dying mother. The son is bitter at what he and his mother suffered from his father's slide into alcoholism, before his disappearance, and so he dreads confronting his father. The group had a lot to say about the impact of trying to care for someone in these circumstances: D suggested that it sounds similar to the toll taken on the carer of a spouse or parent with dementia. C talked about her sister, who managed to conquer her alcoholism only to die from the effects of her addiction to smoking.Our new participant, W's son, loved the descriptions of the landscape through which the son drives, and a few members talked about their own memories of visiting Australia.W found the expression of the son's emotions when he meets his father again very powerful, and B talked about his father, and how, despite their difficult relationship, his feelings changed over the years, and eventually he recognised traits of his father in himself.

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Emotionally there is so much to explore in this story, and almost everyone had something to say, so we went way over our allotted time, without doing complete justice to the story.

 

But we made a little extra time for the R S Thomas poem 'Arrival' with its note of hopefulness - and B felt that it expressed his sense of recognising his roots and rediscovering where he belonged.

 

An excellent session, with everybody still engaged after 2 hours!

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(Identifying initials have been changed)