{"id":24631,"date":"2014-02-22T06:30:16","date_gmt":"2014-02-21T17:30:16","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/?p=24631"},"modified":"2014-02-20T21:43:25","modified_gmt":"2014-02-20T08:43:25","slug":"commemorating-february-22nd-2011","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2014\/02\/22\/commemorating-february-22nd-2011\/","title":{"rendered":"Commemorating February 22nd, 2011"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the third anniversary of the earthquake that devastated my home city of Christchurch on Tuesday February 22nd, 2011.<\/p>\n<p>I must admit that I am trying to move on from those events, even though it&#8217;s difficult with the the after-effects still very evident in every aspect of life: physical and emotional, psychological and social.<\/p>\n<p>So no big post for today, but I did chart the earthquake and its aftermath through the <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/category\/earthquakereports\/\" target=\"_blank\">Earthquake Reports <\/a>and <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/category\/earthquakepoems\/\" target=\"_blank\">Earthquake Poems<\/a> (just click on the links or look under categories in the right hand sidebar.)The anniversary has also been commemorated here on the blog for the past two years:<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2012\/02\/22\/commemorating-february-22nd-2010\/\" target=\"_blank\">22 February 2012: Commemorating February 22nd, 2011<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2013\/02\/22\/commemorating-february-22nd-2011-disintegration\/\" target=\"_blank\">22 February 2013: Commemorating February 22nd, 2011: \u201cDisintegration\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n<p>Sometimes I want to talk about it, others my feelings are more like these lines from Barbara Strang&#8217;s poem, <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2013\/08\/20\/tuesday-poem-for-a-song-by-barbara-strang\/\" target=\"_blank\">For A Song<\/a>:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;My father had been there,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> didn\u2019t talk about it<\/em><\/p>\n<p><em>he withdrew fat volumes<\/em><br \/>\n<em> of war histories from the library<\/em><br \/>\n<em> to find what it was about.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Except that I doubt any history could explain what in my own <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/07\/12\/tuesday-poem-indifferent-planet\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>Indifferent Planet<\/em> <\/a>I refer to as one of:<\/p>\n<p><em>&#8220;&#8230;the random acts of violence<\/em><br \/>\n<em> of an indifferent planet&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>although they may cover material similar to what I sought to convey in these lines from <a href=\"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/2011\/07\/19\/tuesday-poem-this-will-be-us\/\" target=\"_blank\"><em>This Will Be Us<\/em><\/a>:<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;&#8230;<em>And yet,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> how could that future observer<\/em><br \/>\n<em> feel more<\/em><br \/>\n<em> than a passing wonder,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> a flash of empathy \u2026<\/em><br \/>\n<em> <span style=\"color: #ffffff;\">.<\/span><\/em><br \/>\n<em> \u2026 any more than we do now<\/em><br \/>\n<em> when looking at old records<\/em><br \/>\n<em> of past disasters:<\/em><br \/>\n<em> the great pandemic, say,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> that followed World War 1,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> or the Wahine storm \u2014<\/em><br \/>\n<em> and only fleetingly imagine<\/em><br \/>\n<em> the reality that these people \u2014<\/em><br \/>\n<em> flickers on a newsreel,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> stills in a frame \u2014<\/em><br \/>\n<em> experienced, lived through,<\/em><br \/>\n<em> endured.&#8221;<\/em><\/p>\n<p>Kia kaha, Christchurch.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Today is the third anniversary of the earthquake that devastated my home city of Christchurch on Tuesday February 22nd, 2011. I must admit that I am trying to move on from those events, even though it&#8217;s difficult with the the after-effects still very evident in every aspect of life: physical and emotional, psychological and social. [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32,10],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-24631","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-earthquakereports","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24631","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=24631"}],"version-history":[{"count":7,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24631\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":24679,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24631\/revisions\/24679"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24631"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24631"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/helenlowe.info\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24631"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}