Celebrated All Blacks rugby captain Ritchie MaCaw used to write these two words at the top of a new page in his journal following every match/championship/world cup win.
While I’m not quite at that level of athletic achievement I’d like to think that he and I have at least one shared belief:
However familiar the territory the learning should never stop.
I’ve just come out of my 17th August off-grid and have been steadily easing back into full modus operendi. 17th because when No 1 son arrived 17 years and change ago I realised that I could (and should) take time out every year to be More Dad – and if I started from Year 0 I’d have 5 years practice before school summer holidays became a thing in family life and I really really needed to be present during August.
No email.
No phone.
And as I did more and more of my work in prisons, guess what? That work (and more) was still there when I emerged in September.
So much for FOMO then.
I’ve found that the time needed for full decompression varies according to well, lots of stuff on my inside and outside – and Cognitive Containment remains a feature – but it is what it is and that is my biggest planned firebreak of the year to go with all my other smaller ones.
Because a Rest When I’m Retired / Sleep When I’m Dead mentality is a fallacy.
You can carry that sh** off for a while (and at a cost) in the short term, but as a strategy for any kind of long-term consistent performance it’s fatally flawed.
Y’all gotta take a break before you really need to take a break.
Go-Pause-Renew-Go: Start Again.
Some things are different…
We have a new government and prisons are for all intents and purposes, full.
And some things are very much the same…
The people, the need – and a belief at the top that building more prisons to put more people in will reduce crime. (To be clear: It wont. Talk to me if you want to understand why).
One thing that’s different for me is that this autumn the plan has me adding a second prison to my roster so earlier this month had me heading to HMP Hindley, north Manchester to start the courtship. It’s a much lower category of prison than HMP Manchester and the intention is that I’ll focus on their Young Adults (18-25). I’ve been there a few times over the years but it’s been a while since my last visit and after a year at High Security Manchester it’s the differences that really stand out:
Less locks, less gates, less barriers, more space, more green, more air, more sky, more tidy, more stuff going on, more smiles…
‘More space to breathe,’ remarked a member of staff who recently moved here from Manchester.
I knew exactly what they meant as I’d spent most of my first visit with my head on swivel and eyes wide as I reminded myself that a typical prison environment was not Manchester – it was one like this. I mean, this is still a hard place to live and work on many measures but by comparison?
It’s sobering what you can make pass for ‘normal’ if given enough exposure.
In a break from tradition I’d actually been back to HMP Manchester in August for what I told myself wasn’t anything to do with my work. And it kinda wasn’t – and kinda was. Manchester – like many other prisons – host a periodic guided tour round the place for family and friends of staff members. It is, as you can imagine, quite a thing for all involved – a high security prison with an infamous riot history not being your average place of work.
People come for many reasons and not everything gets left at the gate: Curiosity, nerves, questions all tag along for the tour.
As part of his continuing personal development I’d brought my eldest son.
Mrs Mouncey and I are quite keen that as a general rule he stays out of prison.
I could think of no better way to help him do this that to bring him inside and let him see-hear-feel some of what it’s like. Over the years I’ve had various goes at doing my best to explain to our boys What Dad Does, What It Feels Like & Why They Should Care (At Least A Little). While I think I’ve got better at that neither have I ever been convinced I’ve got it right. Finding a way they could experience a little of it had been a goal for a while but I could never find a way.
And then this. So I did the Manage Expectations bit and then practiced the skills of shutting up so he could get on with experiencing…
What I hadn’t really reconciled was what hat of my own to wear: Staff? Visitor? That bloke with the orange shirt that works here? In the end I settled for trying very hard to be under the radar – no orange shirt – which was working right until we were all assembled in the central hub from which access to the wings is controlled and were spotted by a group of ‘my’ young adults who had been through my program.
Cue much – shall we say – surprised boisterous greetings from them and no doubt a raised eyebrows and WTFs? from our group. I fleetingly entertained the option of standing my ground before realising how silly that would look and how much it could sabotage the relationships I’d built – and somewhat sheepishly headed over to more good-natured if somewhat loud joshing and an impromptu class on deflecting pertinent questions without it appearing I was doing just that.
And so my eldest had his first unscripted introduction to teenagers serving time behind bars. What I hope he saw were young men around his age behaving as young men in a group are sometimes want to behave.
What I hope he saw was his Dad behaving as his Dad behaves.
What I hope he felt was…
Of course he’ll feel what he felt – and while I know some of it was conflicting for him what I also hope is that there were seeds of compassion in there too. Prison is a stark reminder that real life is messy and people are complicated – and while the crimes merit condemnation the sentence handed down can also provide an opportunity for the person to turn the page and to start again.
Better.
Something which is almost impossible to do and make stick without help.
Someone has to decide to extend a lifeline and to do so with compassion.
That could be you today, tomorrow, next year.
If you choose.
I hope my son can make that choice when his time comes too.
