Beauty in the Eye of Tragedy

Tonight I went out with two of my best friends for dinner. We went to a popular place in the middle of Christchurch and shared a yummy meal. It was lovely and town was bustling with bubbly people chatting and smiling and sharing and revelling in the joy of life. Well that was what it felt like.

But the dinner isn’t what I want to share. It’s the bit after. It seems hard sometimes to see the cracks in people, where little bits are broken or missing. People are good at hiding it. It’s just human nature. I know I hide things that hurt me, a bit much sometimes. But as one of my best friends said at dinner, it’s the cracks that let in the light. And it seems sometimes, so very cruelly true. We may not be able to see people’s broken bits, but we can see the broken bits of buildings, the ones that have fallen down in the earthquakes. In the big earthquake that struck ten years ago, on the Monday just been.

Some broken bits are still there as reminders of the healing yet to come. As reminders of the devastation that stared right in the face of Cantabrians and New Zealanders. But what strikes me is the way everyone stared back. With determination and kindness and dust and tear streaked faces.

I’m not from here, but I live here now. And it seems like courage lingers in every flower and down every cul-de-sac. It seems to be woven into the dawn that breaks over the horizon at Godley Head. It’s woven into the clouds that paint the sky at dusk. It‘s in the trickle of the river and roar of the waves and in every smile that graces each face.

Earthquakes leave scars, in hearts and on skin. And it leaves scars in the landscape. Jagged lines that tell stories of when the earth moved beneath people’s feet. These scars are called mountains. The ones that we say are beautiful. The ones that we conquer. The ones that anchor us a fill us with unadulterated bliss and sureness. But mountains do not rise without earthquakes.

I‘d never wish so much pain and heartache on anyone, any region, any country. But it has happened now, there are cracks, but it lets the light shine in. The selflessness of ordinary people who stepped up to rescue those trapped in rubble. Those giving hugs to people with tear-stained cheeks, and those without. Those who radiate kindness and compassion. Those who held hands. Those who lead and those who followed, and all those who continue to put one fooot in front of the other.

I feel I cannot have such a position to speak on such an enormous event, I wasn’t even in Christchurch. But I was at home in New Plymouth, I watched and felt and swayed with the nation. Trying to smile too, and be a little kinder, like all those heros I saw on TV and those I knew who were thee, but couldn’t see. And I want just as much good to come to a city that has been through so much, as any Cantabrian would.

All those words I just wrote. I couldn’t quite find until just now, and I feel like they have tumbled out onto the page.

After dinner, we walked along the Avon River that trickles through the centre of town. Quiet beauty. Until we reached the memorial wall for the February 22nd 2011 earthquake. I had no words jumbling in my head as I walked slowly past all of the names and wreaths. No words in my usually chaotic mind. Only an overwhelming feeling that swept over me, starting at the top of my head and weaving down to the tips of my fingers, then down my legs to my toes. And I’m sure it shot through my feet and gave the ground a little heart beat. Ba bom. So much life lingers in that space. One foot barely moved in front of the next as the weight of grief sat heavy on my shoulders. I wanted to cry a bit. Cry because there is so much loss. But cry because so much kindness followed. Cry because I can’t quite comprehend how Christchurch keeps going so courageously. But they do. And it is beautiful. It is beauty in the eye of tragedy.