Eine kleide nachtmusik

Standing on shaky ground.
8:55pm (last night) We had an earthquake. 6.8 on the Richter scale, 40 kms deep, centred off the East Coast near Gisborne. Now there's nothing too uncommon about earthquakes in this country (as everyone who lives in the Ring of fire knows too well), but it takes a good shake to get me under the door frame! I was there last night. It wasn't all that big here on the west side of the country, but it rolled for quite some time. Sometimes during a quake there comes a moment when the thought that 'This is IT' enters the brain, that's usually when I get under cover. There has been damage to buildings in the Gisborne CBD, not a nice pressie for shop owners, but as far as I know no-one died or was seriously injured. The adrenaline rush was a bonus.

In the middle of the night.
12:13am. Well I wasn't walking in my sleep, but I did in fact have an insight about my lack of Christmas spirit: I spent 19 years working in a tertiary institute that closed down over the Christmas/New Year period. 9 days break, something to look forward to. From the beginning of December there would be Departmental luncheons (if you worked in 2 departments, you got 2 lunches); mince pies, Christmas cake and/or chocolates at morning and afternoon teas; strawberries and ice-cream; closing at noon on the last day and those precious days off (which in the end didn't come off your annual leave!). There was tradition and a clear demarcation of 'the end of the year'.

A couple of years ago I burned out, and I left my job. That first Christmas, my ex-colleagues invited me to the dept. lunch with them. It was like I'd never left, and I still had that sense of breaking up for the holidays. Now though, every day is pretty much the same. There is no demarcation, and nothing special to look forward to. My sister will probably read this and think 'what about Spen?'. Spen's dad brought him over from Australia for Christmas last year, and he's done the same this year. Our family gets to have Spen for two weeks. I can't wait to see him, and to get one of his wonderful hugs, but it's almost like that has nothing to do with Christmas. Or that seeing him doesn't quite make up for the loss of those 19 years. I wouldn't go back there for ALL the tea in China, but I do miss the fun and camaraderie, and I'm still grieving I guess. Maybe I should start a tradition, a ritual of my own to mark the season (just not making all the gifts each year - it's HARD WORK!!)

Anyhoo, that's enough rambling - it seemed all clear when I thought about it After midnight (that is a song title, right?) and I wrote myself some notes, and then ...

(The lights all went out in) Massachusetts,
Palmerston North actually. At least twice. I was trying to crochet and write and in the end I gave up on both activities. My lights stayed out till this morning.