sam i sisifo

September 4th 2012,  2 years since the 7.1 that started major changes in so many lives around me.

At that moment when the earthquake struck, the band Pump had just finished playing at The Southern Blues Bar in Madras Street.  Most had already left.  There were only a handful of people other than band and staff still finishing off their last drinks before leaving the bar.

The first 2 seconds you just stop.  Then when the dust starts falling from the ceiling you suddenly realise “This is real!”  The bar leaners are 2 inch thick solid rimu tops planted firmly on 12 inch diameter posts, 2 people dive under them but most of the others just dash for the door.  I duck down beside the bar, trying to squeeze my XXXL, 6ft, 19st. frame under the 4 inch overhang of the bar top.  It rocks on for what seems like 2 minutes and everytime I consider dashing for better cover it seems to intensify, rooting me to the spot.

45 seconds after it started, it stopped.  There is silence, for an eternal second, followed by a string of expletives from absolutely everywhere.   I would not be at all surprised if the whole city spontaneously swore right at that moment.

In the first few minutes that followed there was no immediate phone access.  The band members decided that going home to check on families etc. was more important than packing up the remainder of their gear (fair enough) so they high-tailed it out the door.  It wasn’t the first “critical” event I had experienced at the bar so I just clicked straight in to “management mode”, checked everyone was ok and started cleaning up.

It was probably 10 minutes before I checked outside the front of the building and realised that most of the rest of town had lost power.  Standing at the corner of our block was like standing in the centre of a pie-chart where 1/4 of the pie is in light and 3/4 is in pitch black darkness.  As I peered in to the darkness, I realised there was a car down the road that had been pummeled by the fallen parapet of the building it was parked beside.  I knew there would be no-one in it as it was the only car in sight and 15 minutes earlier (just before the quake) there were dozens of cars parked that side of the street.  I scanned the top of our building and realised there were also a few bricks missing from our parapet.  That’s when it started to dawn on me that this was indeed a big quake.  I rang home to check on the family, by this time we’d had a few aftershocks, they were all together and ok.  I went up on to the roof to check the parapet, much of it had collapsed on to the building next door and I discovered that I could see down in to the bar.  I rang Nigel and Leanna, (Blues Bar owners) to give them a report on the status of the bar.  Their place got it pretty bad.  I arranged to get some tarpaulins from Bunnings for them and meet up later on to patch up the parapet, then I carried on cleaning and tidying before heading off to my day job.

I would normally go home for a few hours sleep before starting work at 9.30, but considering I’d stayed at the bar nearly 2 hours longer than normal to clean up, I figured there might be some clean up required at Bunnings before I started work.  The sky was just starting to light up as I drove down Madras Street from the bar and I was too focussed on the road (and it’s newly acquired undulations) to notice much of the damage to my surroundings.  I arrived at the store at the same time as the complex manager and the operations manager and the 3 of us entered the building together.  Everyone must have had similar lines of thought because within minutes half the rostered team were there and it was still more than an hour to opening.  We did our best to open, but apart from the logistics of doing sales without power in an eftpos reliant society, the aftershocks were prevalent and the decision was made to close the store for safety reasons.  I was low on petrol and realising that most petrol stations between work and home would have been affected by the earthquake I took the long way home to try and find a service station that was working.  This meant that I circled around town, going through the lesser affected suburbs.  As I surveyed these suburbs I was relieved to see not nearly as much damage as I had feared.  When I got home and walked in to the lounge I was shocked.

The television was showing the damage around the city.  I had been right in the middle of all that and yet somehow oblivious to it all.  I had realised the situation was serious and yet had no idea of it’s enormity and impact.  I don’t know why I was fortunate enough to come through that situation unscathed.  Nor do I know why, when the 2nd major  earthquake struck on February 22nd, I was even more fortunate to survive once again being so close to the centre of all the chaos that ensued.  But I am glad that I did.

I went for a drive earlier tonight.

I made a point of parking the car near the outskirts of the town that was.

I got out and walked up to a street corner that was bordered down one side by the wire mesh fences that have kept most of us out of town for the last year.

I stood and looked up into the night sky.  I watched as the spotlights circled through the sky above our once bustling city.  I cried.

Maybe it was because they served as a reminder of the 2 devastating earthquakes that had changed our skyline, or maybe it was because their time has come.  It was predetermined when the decision was made to have these 2 beacons, that they would be extinguished on the anniversary of the 6.3 that destroyed so much of our city.

Light signifies hope and it has been comforting to see these lights shining in our night skies over the past few months and think that there is hope.  But the time has come to move forward.  Hope is much like a Dream, it can give you purpose, but until you act upon it, it has no substance.  So many of us have lost so much to this terrible tragedy that has put many of our lives on hold for the last year, but there is hope, and I, for one, am ready to move forward.

I let the tears flow, and I resolved to give substance and meaning to my hopes, my aspirations, my dreams.

If life were fair, good things would come to good people and people who break the rules would suffer the consequences.  People who lead dangerous but exciting lives would live the action packed existence that they strive for, however short that may be.  Whereas those that choose to do all the right things:  work hard, achieve well, marry, buy a house, raise beautiful children, accumulate friends just through sheer and genuine niceness would live long productive and rewarding lives.  If life were fair only fat people would have heart attacks, only smokers would get lung cancer,  only drunk drivers would suffer disfigurement and amputations.  If life were fair good people wouldn’t be prone to random, nonsensical occurrences that take lives.

If life were fair my dear nephew, who was taught from a young age to “Always be the best you can be, because as long as you’re trying your hardest then nobody can ask anything more of you.”, would still be alive today.

But life is not fair.  If anything, it is random.  We may wonder what point there is to striving to live a good, purposeful life.  Especially when we witness what can only be described as a crime against humanity (When a young man strives to live a good life and by all accounts he is achieving such, when that young man suddenly dies, so many others are suddenly affected; THAT is a crime against humanity.)  I know there will be some that take the attitude “What’s the point?  Why make the effort to do all the right things, to live a decent life and set a good example?  Especially when it can all be taken from you in an instant!”

The answer is simple:  Because we should; if only to give meaning to those before us who have done so.  To prove that life IS a blessing.  To show that they DID make an impact in this world!

Life is NOT fair, but maybe it’s not supposed to be.  Maybe THAT’s the point.  We shouldn’t expect life to be all cookies and cream just because we’re nice people that do nice things.  We should expect to have to strive to achieve so that we value and appreciate what we receive as opposed to taking the good things in life for granted.  Life is NOT fair.  Sometimes I wish it was, but I do understand that things can’t be how I want them to be simply because that’s how I want it.

There are so many things in life that can be such a struggle to understand, but one thing I am aware of is that nobody has a greater influence on my life than I do.  Despite the unfairness we sometimes witness and are subjected to we still have more control on our own situations than any other force of nature or God.  I will strive to live what I consider to be a worthwhile existence simply because I can.  I will do so because I refuse to accept any defeatist notion that I am at the mercy of lifes cruel and unfair whims.  I will do so as a sign of respect to all those who have had a positive influence on my life.  I will do so as an example to those I love, that life is ours to live.

Ia manuia lou malaga – safety and well being on your journey