We had a reunion recently after 20 years.
What was interesting was on two levels: people reflecting on what brought them into the action, into activism, the spark that brought us together; and then, 20 years later, seeing the different arcs those sparks drew in different directions and dimensions.
We were all drawn together for a moment from different paths and we all worked together, were active together, and then people went off in very different directions.
There were also lots of lines on people’s faces which hadn’t been there before, which I suppose is also part of tracing those arcs. It was also really interesting finding things out. I was really deeply involved with this piece of activism at the time, but now, even 20 years later, I’m still finding out things about the action that I didn’t know at the time.
No matter how much you’re involved in things, it seems there’s always more to be found out. I still feel profoundly part of that group of people. It was more than just that we were in our twenties and full of life and energy; we had something more together.
Other people at the reunion didn’t necessarily feel the way they had back then, but I still feel pretty much the same as I did then. It could be seen as a negative thing, as being stuck in a rut. I prefer to see it as persistence....
We had a 10-year reunion a while ago.
I enjoyed it very much because I got to know people in the group much better on a personal level than when we were actually doing the politics together.
It was sort of like we had different conversations about other aspects of life for the first time, as well as the closeness that had been formed through being in an action group together.
I know that the reunion was a bit exclusive because no one had thought about childcare. We’d fallen down at the time of the action on childcare, and at the reunion we fell down again.
We didn’t actually talk much about the action itself. It was a good thing just to have that process of touching base over a period of time. It provides a continuity in your own life history. It stops you losing the past.