after a night

of rain and aftershocks,

I remembered from our 'practice' earthquake on Sept 4th,

you don't really sleep,

you just doze between earthquakes

but you aren't awake either.

Exhaustion for everyone will set in today.

That's the prelude to Post Traumatic Stress.

I have spent my whole life having earthquakes.

I remember my first when I was 5,

watching a large mirror on the lounge wall

violently swinging from side to side.

That was fun because I didn't know what it meant.

I moved to California a few months after

the Loma Prieta earthquake in 1989.

I remember large aftershocks,

one being on the phone during one

and the woman at the other end becoming hysterical.

It was ok because I didn't know what it meant.

I remember listening to an earthquake roll across the Hutt Valley

towards the pole house I lived in on the side of a hill.

It roared as it came,

rocked and rolled when it hit.

It was scary because that pole house swayed with the earthquake and took ages to stop.

It was ok because it was the house that exaggerated the quake.

I have endured and even enjoyed numerous earthquakes in my life.

Big, small, shaky, jolting, rolling and sudden.

They were all ok because it was ok.

September 4th was not ok but doable.

Standing in the pre-dawn clutching the doorframe

but knowing it was a shaking earthquake so there would damage

I didn't think of death just destruction.

The swarm of smallish shaky earthquakes that cracked my window sills

moved my doorframes making my doors hang so I can see daylight,

window frames that let rain in,

cracks in walls and sank my house's piles.

The Sundays at Church with jolting, dropping earthquakes

hitting hard and fast,

like those heart stopping, heart dropping

elevator rides at funparks.

5 in a row, each hitting with a loud boom.

The Boxing Day earthquake, Sunday 26 December 10.35am.

Our Bishop stands to talk about repentance

and what was until then,

the most violent earthquake hit.

You have to laugh when that happens,

afterward.

During though you are clutching the pew like it's a safety bar on the rollercoaster car.

The thousands of 'small' earthquakes in between.

Just when we think it's all over

another big one hits

and the cycle of a settling earth starts all over again.

The number of people I know who missed the Sept 4th quake

and were away on Boxing Day too was surprisingly high.

They didn't know

but all those lucky people will have joined the jaded rest of us now.

Who would have thought 6.3 could be worse than 7.1?

The engineers who have been working non-stop since Sept 4th

must feel terrible as they would have signed off

the buildings that have collapsed.

Buildings were too weak,

roads too fragile,

water and sewerage mains already cracked,

people's lives in the balance and on hold.

I would say it's too much but we will get through this too.