Memorial Day
Mar. 18th, 2011 09:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rumpelsnorcackThere was a memorial today in Hagley Park for the victims of the quake. It's been quite controversial with many people insisting it was too early, too religious, too political, too whatever-they-were-annoyed-by-at-the-time. I always intended to go, however, and went along as planned. No-one from my closest circle of friends was going so I arranged to meet up with some people from twitter/livejournal/Dreamwidth. Getting there was ... interesting. I chose to bus in because I didn't want to worry about finding a park in town at the moment what with a lack of parking and the usual places I find to park all either inside the cordon or blocked off. I have to say, taking a bus down Beach Road at the moment is not my very favourite thing to do. It's bad enough bumping along the gravel and hole filled road in a car - do it in a bus, minus seatbelts and adding the fact of bus size making it impossible to avoid the sink holes and it becomes truly unpleasant. Once we got onto the more or less intact roads the trip was mostly uneventful, apart from driving past the eerily deserted Palms mall and seeing the carpark all broken and horrible. That's a place I go a lot, and I remember going there after the last quake and being nervous about it given that bits of it looked a little dodgy. Now I'm sure they did the structural reports properly and all, but it's still kinda freaky that this time it's been shut down. Rumour has it that some parts of it may be demolished. How true that is I don't know, but I do know someone who's working on it and he says it's a very big job and it will be out of action for quite a while.
At the new bus depot (a small area of one of our avenues - new because the bus exchange is right in the centre of the city and so massively offlimits) I got off and walked past Victoria Street to the park. That was very sad because it was only a couple of weeks before the quake that I was there doing my Rediscovering Christchurch thing. Thank goodness I couldn't see much beyond the rubble on the corner where they have demolished a building - one that I already knew was down so wasn't too bad, and the sad looking remains of the buildings on the other corners of that intersection. It was kind of hard looking down the street and knowing that further down there and closer into the city things are far worse. Very sobering - kind of appropriate for the event though. Entered the park in a most sombre frame of mind.
Then it was the fun and joy of finding those people I was meeting up with. When you have met two of them once each (and one of them had been very green at the time due to being at a sci-fi party) and never have met the other, it gets complicated to do this. Thankfully we had prearranged signals and descriptions of possible clothing and accessories and were able to find each other. Well, I found two of them anyway. The other and I spent a lot of time texting our positions and still being unable to find each other. Oh well. My helpful comment that I was wearing black and red wasn't all that much use either since around 1/3 of the crowd was also wearing it. I thought hard about whether to do it or not. They are probably the two most common colours I wear anyway, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to be 'Canterbury supporter' today or not, but decided in the end why not?
The service itself made me cry a lot, which is awesome because it's exactly what I wanted. I didn't have the kids with me, and so I was able to just live it. I started crying when they played some footage of the city, carried on through almost all the speeches, then got irritated by the sermon thing (seriously, did she just say that we need to check inside to see if we became Christian because we helped each other? Did she really? Because, lady, people of all sorts of faiths and of no faith at all help each other because it's the right thing to do and Christianity doesn't have the stranglehold on being good people.) Then I started crying again when they played a montage of all the people helping each other, both here in the immediate aftermath and all around the country. It's times like those that I love people, really. People did (and are still continuing to do) so much for each other. It's really nice.
There was a lot of reference to the quake and tsunami in Japan, and an acknowledgement that while we have some measure of understanding the immediacy of what they are going through, we still have no idea what it must be like on that scale. It was nice to make the acknowledgement that we're not the only ones going through this right now and that even in our own pain we appreciate the pain they are also dealing with.
I do have to say that I am thoroughly sick of being called strong and resilient. I don't feel either; I feel brittle and like I could still shatter at any moment, and while I know all the speechmakers were trying to make us feel good, all it does is make me go 'well, is everyone else doing better than me then?' I'm sure that's not the truth, but being told we're so strong, so stoic, so resilient etc etc just makes me feel like I'm not allowed to have the feelings I do have, like it's not part of these peoples' vision of us and thus needs to be done in private - like it's something to be ashamed of. This is not a helpful way to feel right now.
And now I'm going to contradict that by saying that I have found a group of cheesy songs about rebuilding the city that I keep playing ad nauseam (much to the 'delight' of my husband) because I like what they say - the lyrics are often cheesy, the music tinny and the voices on at least one is so overproduced it's not even funny. But the emotions behind the videos they made are sincere and that means a lot. There's also this one that has been my new 'happy place' song this week. Some of you might remember how Kids of 88 was my happy place CD last quake - well, it didn't work this time. This time apparently it's Brooke Fraser. Bit of a change of pace there.
Anyway, that's me. It's been an emotional day (and I got sunburnt again, badly *sigh*) and I'm ready for an early night. But it was good - good to go, good to meet (or re-meet) new people and good to finally let myself cry. That's hopefully phase one in beginning to move onwards a bit.
At the new bus depot (a small area of one of our avenues - new because the bus exchange is right in the centre of the city and so massively offlimits) I got off and walked past Victoria Street to the park. That was very sad because it was only a couple of weeks before the quake that I was there doing my Rediscovering Christchurch thing. Thank goodness I couldn't see much beyond the rubble on the corner where they have demolished a building - one that I already knew was down so wasn't too bad, and the sad looking remains of the buildings on the other corners of that intersection. It was kind of hard looking down the street and knowing that further down there and closer into the city things are far worse. Very sobering - kind of appropriate for the event though. Entered the park in a most sombre frame of mind.
Then it was the fun and joy of finding those people I was meeting up with. When you have met two of them once each (and one of them had been very green at the time due to being at a sci-fi party) and never have met the other, it gets complicated to do this. Thankfully we had prearranged signals and descriptions of possible clothing and accessories and were able to find each other. Well, I found two of them anyway. The other and I spent a lot of time texting our positions and still being unable to find each other. Oh well. My helpful comment that I was wearing black and red wasn't all that much use either since around 1/3 of the crowd was also wearing it. I thought hard about whether to do it or not. They are probably the two most common colours I wear anyway, but I wasn't sure if I wanted to be 'Canterbury supporter' today or not, but decided in the end why not?
The service itself made me cry a lot, which is awesome because it's exactly what I wanted. I didn't have the kids with me, and so I was able to just live it. I started crying when they played some footage of the city, carried on through almost all the speeches, then got irritated by the sermon thing (seriously, did she just say that we need to check inside to see if we became Christian because we helped each other? Did she really? Because, lady, people of all sorts of faiths and of no faith at all help each other because it's the right thing to do and Christianity doesn't have the stranglehold on being good people.) Then I started crying again when they played a montage of all the people helping each other, both here in the immediate aftermath and all around the country. It's times like those that I love people, really. People did (and are still continuing to do) so much for each other. It's really nice.
There was a lot of reference to the quake and tsunami in Japan, and an acknowledgement that while we have some measure of understanding the immediacy of what they are going through, we still have no idea what it must be like on that scale. It was nice to make the acknowledgement that we're not the only ones going through this right now and that even in our own pain we appreciate the pain they are also dealing with.
I do have to say that I am thoroughly sick of being called strong and resilient. I don't feel either; I feel brittle and like I could still shatter at any moment, and while I know all the speechmakers were trying to make us feel good, all it does is make me go 'well, is everyone else doing better than me then?' I'm sure that's not the truth, but being told we're so strong, so stoic, so resilient etc etc just makes me feel like I'm not allowed to have the feelings I do have, like it's not part of these peoples' vision of us and thus needs to be done in private - like it's something to be ashamed of. This is not a helpful way to feel right now.
And now I'm going to contradict that by saying that I have found a group of cheesy songs about rebuilding the city that I keep playing ad nauseam (much to the 'delight' of my husband) because I like what they say - the lyrics are often cheesy, the music tinny and the voices on at least one is so overproduced it's not even funny. But the emotions behind the videos they made are sincere and that means a lot. There's also this one that has been my new 'happy place' song this week. Some of you might remember how Kids of 88 was my happy place CD last quake - well, it didn't work this time. This time apparently it's Brooke Fraser. Bit of a change of pace there.
Anyway, that's me. It's been an emotional day (and I got sunburnt again, badly *sigh*) and I'm ready for an early night. But it was good - good to go, good to meet (or re-meet) new people and good to finally let myself cry. That's hopefully phase one in beginning to move onwards a bit.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-18 09:23 am (UTC)I can't think of anything more meaningful
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-18 09:29 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-18 01:38 pm (UTC)I'm pretty annoyed with the sermon, too. I am Christian, and I dislike when other Christians try to force their faith onto others. You are right--Christians certainly do not corner the market on kindness, sometimes the opposite is true, unfortunately. We are all PEOPLE together, and that fact should unite us. Our different faiths, different cultures, different backgrounds . . . make life exciting and keep things interesting when we respect each other.
I'm thankful the memorial was meaningful for you, and helped you to move forward a bit in your grief process.
*HUGE HUGS*
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-18 11:02 pm (UTC)As to the sermon, it's not that what she said was even the main point of her speech or like she didn't say so many other really great things, but it stands out to me, unfortunately, because again it made me feel like my own response (and those of the countless thousands of other people) wasn't adequate enough for her. That if it didn't come from her god then it was somehow worth less, so she was finding a way to make it worth more in her eyes. When in actual fact her words cheapened what people did. I'll stop ranting about it now, sorry.
*hugs you* One day I'll try to stop pontificating in my comments to you :D
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-18 06:19 pm (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-18 11:05 pm (UTC)Crying is good, it's nice to get some release finally :)
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-19 02:15 am (UTC)(seriously, did she just say that we need to check inside to see if we became Christian because we helped each other? Did she really? Because, lady, people of all sorts of faiths and of no faith at all help each other because it's the right thing to do and Christianity doesn't have the stranglehold on being good people.)
Blarg. And that's about all I've got to say to that.
*hugs* You bloody well feel brittle if you're feeling brittle.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-19 02:15 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-19 08:32 pm (UTC)Yes, exactly. It is a real pity that she lost a lot of the good stuff in her speech by doing that. I've seen comments all over about it and that is pretty much all anyone talks about apart from the media themselves who carefully sidestep it.
*hugs* You bloody well feel brittle if you're feeling brittle.
*hugs back* I will! :D Prince William probably did the best one because while he talked about looking in and admiring, it was more of an acknowledgment that they were watching a hard graft rather than this resilience everyone else seemed to want us to have.
Oh, and I like your tattoo! Excellent reason to get one.
Thank you :) I'm pretty taken with it myself. My daughter keeps asking when it will go away since her only previous experience with tattoos is the ones that wash off. She's constantly surprised when it's still there.
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-23 06:19 pm (UTC)It's always so hard to figure out what to say . . . I can see why that would be better, though.
My daughter keeps asking when it will go away since her only previous experience with tattoos is the ones that wash off. She's constantly surprised when it's still there.
Ha! That's adorable <3
(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-21 09:07 am (UTC)(no subject)
Date: 2011-03-21 11:35 pm (UTC)