Tuesday, July 3, 2012

and another earthquake

On TV there is a new ad
all about promoting what to do in an earthquake.
There are a bunch of cute little kids
who talk about how they think earthquakes happen.
Excessively cute and very smart.
Little kids teaching us what to do in an earthquake
or a thousand depending if you live where I do or not.

Watch the ad and see if you notice what I notice.


Did you?
Did you notice the sound of the earthquake?
Did you hear it rumbling  in the distance?

In my world that's not in the distance.
That's coming towards you,
in a hurry with some fury.

 This is the sound I have woken up to in pitch black,
waking up sweaty and bothered,
confused and disoriented,
realising it was 'just' an earthquake,
nothing fell, nothing broken and
it's dark anyway so who cares about the power or the water.

This is the sound I've heard coming
as I've been in the shower slippery with soap.
This is the sound that I've eaten meals through,
watched TV through,
read a book, cooked dinner, gardened, lived through.

What I have never done is talked through it
because it's hard to talk while you hold your breath
hoping that the earthquake comes to nothing more
than a solid shake and a broken plate.

Tonight I actually watched the ad
rather then hearing it from another room.
I watched it knowing that there would be the rumble of the earthquake near the end
and even knowing it would come
my stomach still clinched,
I held my breath,
I stilled til it passed.

It's not even real.

And then without the rumble there was a real earthquake.
A long, low, shakey earthquake.
A 7.0, 230 kms deep and a very long way north of here.
A very big earthquake only it was buried deep
so even though it was in the Tasman Sea
and nearer to Taranaki
it was felt all over New Zealand.

Just as I posted on facebook that I disliked the ad
the real but silent earthquake arrived
and reminded me
that as much as the rumble makes me feel ill
there are plenty of surprises.

But it's ok to feel stressed by the earthquake rumbles.
Yes it reminds of how unsafe and unpredicatable our earth is,
 but it also reminds me that there is danger lurking
but I can handle it.

I just need to take a moment to breath through it.



1 comment:

  1. totally agree.
    I hate that advert.
    they may as well be showing buildings fallen down with crushed bodies underneath.
    And what's with the 'hold' bit? we weren't taught that in our drills! Though, in the 80's we didn't need 3 simple words to remember. We just had to get under our desks in a fetal and put our backs to the windows in case they blew in.

    ReplyDelete