Thursday 23 February 2012: Integration

I'm glad the 1 year anniversary of last February's 6.3 earthquake has been and gone.

Of course it's not that simple and I'm learning the balance of remembering and reflecting on the mind boggling enormity of what happened and looking forward to a bright but different future.

We live with ongoing seismic uncertainty, huge losses and a painfully slow process of recovery and rebuild. That's just how it is. The collective trauma varies by degrees for each of us.

And yet we are rebuilding with all kinds of innovation and new thinking emerging. It's exciting to catch glimpses of new energy and ideas, yet shocking still to see so much evidence of 25 seconds of unimaginable violence on homes, businesses, infrastructure and people. I guess a year ago we had no idea how long the dust and ashes would remain, nor our seismic reality.

Integration is my challenge. To reflect and continue moving forward with hope and excitement for a new city and future. I doubt if I'll ever have another such experience in my life time to learn from and contribute to. I certainly hope not so I'll make the most of this one.

Curiously we sometimes fear that reflecting and learning from the past will prevent us moving forward. I suspect it enables us to do it better.

Onwards then.

I'm happy to announce I'm turing a nicely angled curve and I'm on the improve. The antibiotics are doing there thing and I've managed a full day at work. I'm catching up on the necessities of life and then I'll be more blip-present.

• X10:
• f/3.2:
• 1/80":
• 11.7mm:
• ISO 200

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