Thoughts for Today

I decided that I was not going to live in fear anymore, after being frightened as much as one can and still be amongst the living, it seemed like it would be an easy thing to do. But, it is not.

Everyday I have to fight back fear of an altogether different kind than when I was a child left in a dark room with only my own imagination, or running around in flight mode after being shook near off the planet. Now, every day, no matter how hard I try to filter what and how much fear I am subjected to, it is mediated AT me through other peoples televisions, movies, the internet,cell phones and now, an onslaught of competing engineers, insurance agencies and politicians trying to run for cover in case of another major earthquake.

We are all now, for the most part, interconnected and fully entrenched into a network of fear. However, I remind myself of this blog title "I Decide" and then, I decide to over-ride the fear with only one way that works for me...I read, think and write.

Writing works to dispel much of my fear because in the act of writing about anything it requires a great amount of reading and thinking and living first, researching of the most important kind, personal experience and the act of thinking about others experiences with enough energy and effort to block out most emotion. Fear is an emotion that is happiest inside a mind unoccupied by anything worthwhile.

Lately, I have begun to read different material than what I was so preoccupied with in the past. I have found myself lacking in reading journals and books from the scientific community and have been wading around in very hard to understand books and journals that make me THINK hard in order to understand what is written. This has had the most profound effect upon removing the fear that tries to attach itself to me while I am living in Christchurch, a city beseiged by underground monsters and aboveground monsters called politicians, insurance agencies, engineers with conflicting statements and buildings everywhere that demand strict attention before entering.

I was just getting a real handle on this when I was asked to allow another set of engineers through the flat that I am currently living in and writing from. Within a few hours they decided that they do not deem this place safe enough and all of us should evacuate immediately. I asked them what I was to make of the other three engineering reports that said this flat was built like the proverbial #!$* house and they looked at me blankly and said, well, a building built in 1900-1920 could not withstand another big shake and my building would be inclined to collapse. When I told the very young and smart engineer that this building was in fact built in 1949 after the major earthquake in Napier in the North Island and to the codes required for major earthquakes and had already experienced the largest earthquakes and was thereafter deemed solid as the proverbial #!$* house by several other prestigious engineers, he simply said, well, I wouldn't live in it and we are going to request everyone vacate. Methinks this engineer might be a fear monger.

At this writing, I and one other are still here. Everyone else has fled. I am waiting for another engineer to show up this morning, along with my friend with a drill to do some structural testing to these walls that everyone is just guessing as to whether they are reinforced or not. I have been inside this building during some fairly decent aftershocks and never felt in danger. However, I am fighting a ticking clock to save my haven, my home from the fear based extrapolations by a group of engineers that were not even smart enough to know what age the building was, and then...the very smart and young engineer also told me, well, anything built before 1970 is now pretty much suspect...I think he needs to go back to engineering school with generalized statements like that!

Well, I've gotten that off my chest. It will prove interesting to see how this works out. It is important to get yet another appraisal as I have had three groups tell me safe, one now tells me no, do I listen to the no because I choose to be afraid, like the others that split out of here last night, all young, all without any questions of their own, all use to looking at professionals as if they all know what the heck they are talking about...

All I can say now, is the fear I struggle with today is the fear that is so contagious with others that it affects my ability to make my own educated choices about whether my home is safe enough and not having to operate on one no against three yeses...I will decide after today's outcome with people I trust.

If CERRA gets here based on the last report before I can furnish an alternative...none of us will have any choice but to vacate and the building will be pulled down when they get around to it and all of us owners will still have to pay our mortgages because some young and smart, but not very bright man gave one conflicting and fearful view.

Moving On While Standing Still (and eating my own words for breakfast)

I know I sound crazy. I feel it. And, I expect that many of my friends are anticipating hearing I have my bags packed and the moving truck is arriving any day now to haul me out of Christchurch.

However, the funniest thing happened these past two weeks that I had no prepossession of...I lost all my FEAR for the moment.

WOW, I cannot tell you how good that feels. For once, I am speechless...well, almost (never totally speechless is a writer).

I still watch where I am and look around for things to flatten me, but it FEELS differently for reasons that I am not positively sure of, but can only guess at. And, I know I said I would write about ‘other’ things for the moment, but let’s face it...I CANNOT NOT write about this.

These past couple of weeks have been ‘full-on’ for me personally, but then, they always are. Sometimes I feel I live a year inside a week and have felt that way since arriving in New Zealand almost nine years ago. The earthquakes simply feel like exclamation points on an already screaming sentence I call my life.

I have never been accused of being complacent, too passionate, yes, but never complacent. Has complacency settled in?

No, there are a few things that keep happening that makes me FEEL and believe, I am right where I am supposed to be, for now let’s call it, a higher purpose.

For one thing, when I began to make plans to move away immediately from Christchurch, I began to justify leaving behind others who could not physically move away, that well, love and need me as much as I do them. Ah, a Catch-22.

Yep, that is how it works...we tend to go down with the ship with such feelings (and, let’s face it, when have I ever done exactly what I said I was going to do)...and, right after the last set of double earthquakes that did literally ‘scare me shitless’ and had me out looking at real estate in Timaru the day after double indemnity, well...I began to watch a consistent thread running through my life.

I believe ‘running’ is the KEY word here...

When you are sitting in Christchurch dealing with the demon you know, it is hard to pick a place to go that does not have its own demons yet unrecognized...or, perhaps living through so many earthquakes has begun to make me feel invincible, not...I promise not, but I have discovered it was not DEATH that I am afraid of.

The FEAR was and is with living with the constant upheaval and the lack of admittance to the problem at hand. Now, there are things being leaked slowly to confirm I am not crazy, perhaps just more intuitive than most, and very aware of my FEELINGS.

Since September and earthquake #1, we at our house were expecting more earthquakes; you can and do feel their potentiality under your feet if you just take the time to stand still long enough and even when you don’t, you can feel the energy building up and the need for release. Many people who have never talked this way, now talk about FEELING them coming and knowing in advance. Funny that, we are intuitive creatures still, some call us human animals, I think that is a blessing at this moment.

And, there is more to come, earthquakes in Christchurch. But, the same is true with tornados in Oklahoma and even in the state of Massachusetts, we should expect the unexpected no matter where we live. The world is having one of those readjustment periods, or shall I say, is just doing what it always has done, but that we ourselves do not remember.

I feel that every geo tech in the world should be bargaining on how to get here and study what goes on under the patter of feet in Christchurch. And, a few have arrived and discovered enough I think to turn most heads pure white. True, some things you would rather NOT know, but I think that those who DO KNOW are being a bit more free with their information, thereby, giving sensitive folks like me a hand out to not feel so damned crazy.

So, how do we live with this? My friends and I have mapped out “NO GO” places. There are places not yet mapped by the government that they and I will not go to....no matter what. Or, in case of extreme emergencies, we contemplate the process very care-full-ly.

Like yesterday when my husband asked me to go and FEEL a property that might have potential problems. It had been signed off by three engineers as a SAFE building. Yet, he asked me to go to a place I would normally refuse to go to and if I FELT like there was a potential problem, he would write to the people who owned the building and insist upon a geotechnical report for the safety of those working within it. How could I resist this?

It did not take me long to FEEL into the position this property sits within. Sure, the building was fine...but, the land it sits on...has rushing water under my feet on one side of it, and a hollowed out feeling on the opposite. A prescription for disaster in this turbulent make-over of Christchurch, we do not need more engineers...we need geo techs! Or, more responsive people who know how to stand up and say quite boldly...

I CAN FEEL THE DANGER HERE AND NO ONE SHOULD THINK THAT MAKING MONEY IS AS IMPORTANT AS ANY LIFE THAT MIGHT BE NEEDED FOR MORE IMPORTANT THINGS....

So, that is what I have been doing, moving beyond my FEAR and standing still for the moment and saying to those who will listen, don’t go there, come here...and follow your own intuition when it FEELS wrong, trust it, instead of listening to what a building engineer tells you because building engineers have some very strong limitations...

They only look at buildings and not what lies beneath your feet. It all matters here and everywhere else you may go...

And, no one KNOWS enough to make a large group of people actually SAFE in a now documented earthquake zone that is doing what it will do for as long as it takes.

So, I am moving on while standing still.

But, for those who worry about me...don’t...I will die one day, perhaps by earthquake, perhaps not, but when I do die, I won’t do it running into the demons I don’t know, but will hopefully die facing them.

And, that FEELS right and good and responsible to those whom I brought into this world and will one day leave behind...

I am moving on, it just looks different than I first anticipated.