Earthquake Report, Day 17 (March 10)

Had another aftershock that 'registered' this evening—i.e. one of 12 so far today but this one was 4.5 and a real little shaker: Nice. (Not.)

I think I said the other day that around now, ie day 17 post quake and into week 3 (so short a time, but it feels like forever)  is where the really hard part starts. The initial adrenalin rush is over and the immediate disaster relief tasks have largely been done—in my case nothing more significant than picking up broken stuff and shovelling all that sludge, but the CD authorities are also progressively reducing the cordon around the central city. Yet the roads remain like a cross between slalom courses and old river beds, there's still no sewer (or stormwater, fun when the winter rains come) and there's damage to the house that could be dangerous—but the queue to get stuff done is city sized.

Partly, I know that I will normalise to the situation because survival demands it, but another part of me simply felt unreasonably angry today. I just wanted it all to stop and everything to go back to being "nice" and "normal" again. My rational mind—of course!—sneered and said, "Well, you know that's not going to happen, not for a long, long time!" But my emotional self still felt angry and unreasonable anyway.

I realise that this is probably a perfectly normal reaction and the important thing may be to acknowledge that there is going to be (ok, is already!) an emotional reaction (apparently the extreme tiredness is another element of that) and try to be "aware", rather than being ruled by the emotional rollercoaster.  Especially since citywide 'earthquake rage' is not what Christchurch needs right now: we still need every citizen to do their best to keep it together! A bit like those World War 2 posters—which does make me shake my head and wonder how the people who survived that, the civilians as well as the soldiers, managed the transition back from the extreme and prolonged stress of war to a peacetime society.

Another important step is to 'make it normal' as much as possible, which is why I am trying to get back into a routine with my writing and talking about fun stuff here on the blog, as I did yesterday.  So I stuck with the writing again here today and am working on my Book Month workshops as well—but basically every time I stop and look around there's no way of avoiding the hard reality, which is that nothing's in the least bit normal and isn't going to be any time soon. And I just have to deal with that.

Flowers from Zireaux

There are  always bright notes though and today's was receiving this wonderful, colourful bunch of flowers from my fellow Tuesday Poem blog poet, Zireaux.  I love the colours and it's nice to have a spot of bright in amongst all that 'not normal.'  So thank you, Zireaux.