THE PRESS, Christchurch
Tuesday, December 18, 2012 A15
Perspective
Time for grace and hope has arrived
ANN BROWER, who was badly injured in the February 22, 2011 earthquake has found solace and an aid to healing in music.
A
s Christchurch
heals, there is
much talk of
hope. I hope the
rebuilt city will
pay tribute to what we lost in
the earthquakes, but also to
what we found.
Although we have lost
much in Christchurch, we
also found a few things for a
little while, like kindness,
patience, gentleness, empathy
and heroism.
Remember the days when
we as a city were more kind
than angry?
I hope the rebuilt
Christchurch will be a
testament to all that we have
lost, to all that we have found,
to all that we will miss and to
all that we have to look
forward to. I hope we as a city
remember our pain, celebrate
our heroism, remember our
deaths and celebrate our
rebirth. May we rise from the
ashes, while honouring the
souls within those ashes.
In rising from the ashes
and honouring the souls, one
song keeps popping up. It’s the
most sublime piece of music
ever written, except when I
scratch and squeak my way
through it. It’s the song I
found myself listening to over
and over in the corner bunk of
the Orthopaedics Ward in
Christchurch Hospital in the
weeks after February 22.
The second movement of
Bach’s Concerto for Two
Violins in D minor became a
constant yet obsessive,
calming yet haunting
companion in the dark days of
sorrow, terror, confusion,
frustration, helplessness, and
pain that powered over all.
The song made the world
make sense, when it most
assuredly did not.
The song is a call and
response between two violins
who share yet compete for the
melody. It starts with a call of
overwhelming sorrow,
desperately harkening back to
a sweeter place which is
perpetually just out of reach.
The sorrow can see the
place of calm and peace, but
can’t reach it because she is
shoved aside by terror when
the second violin intrudes.
This call of sorrow and
response of terror tells our
story of the earthquakes and
healing. We each have our
own version, but collectively
as a city, we share a story of
sorrow and terror.
The story and the song are
instinctive, haunting and
always, always, always there.
The story, and the song, are
ours and ours alone. No-one
has seen what we have seen.
No-one has felt what we have
felt. Man lives, as he dies,
alone.
On February 22, 2011, I
passed through the gates of
hell, visited the dark place,
shrank from the bright light
and was wrenched back to the
sunshine by the kindness and
bravery of the men of
Colombo St.
As I felt myself being
crushed kilogram by
kilogram, brick by brick, and
bone by bone, the dark place
and the bright light competed
for dominance.
Call and response. Sorrow.
Terror. Sorrow. Terror.
Sorrow. Terror.
Opposing sides of the same
force, pulling, pulling, pulling,
down, down, down.
At the end of the first wave
of the song, the sorrow and
terror fuse to form
unadulterated and
unrelenting pain. The pain is
so steadfast and loyal that it
too becomes a haunting
companion through the weeks
and months of rehabilitation
at Christchurch Hospital,
Burwood Hospital, Lyttelton
Music therapy: Ann Brower practises with Al Park before performing at a party to celebrate the ‘‘kindness and bravery of the men of Colombo St’’.
Photo: RICHARD LOADER
Physiotherapy, Merivale
Hand Therapy and Lincoln
University gym.
By the end of the first
wave, in June, I was able to
walk just far enough to meet
the Dalai Lama. His visit
helped us, the injured
survivors, make peace with
the pain. The first wave ends
in a brief moment of calm in
early June 2011.
It was hard to avoid taking
June 13 personally. I work
close to the September 4, 2010,
epicentre. I was on the block
of Colombo St where 16 died,
one was paralysed and several
more were injured. But then
the June 13, 2011, quake was
spot on home, in Sumner.
I might add that
Christchurch was not my first
major earthquake.
Until June 13, reason had
kept the terror at bay. Having
already survived a building
collapse, the likelihood of
recurrence was exceedingly
low, until the dust rose from
Sumner village and Peacocks
Gallop filled with boulders
and parts of houses. What do
you do when terror is the only
rational response?
I started fiddle lessons,
under duress. During the
brief moment of calm between
the Dalai Lama’s visit and
June 13, I met a man named
Al in a Lyttelton cafe called
Samo’s. We got to chatting,
and I mentioned I was looking
for a band for a rescue party,
to thank the men who dug me
out from under the building
and took me to hospital in the
back of a truck. Al said his
band would love to play, but
only if I played one fiddle song
with them.
At that point, I couldn’t
bend my left index finger far
enough to reach a string, let
alone happen to set it down in
the exact right spot on the
string I was aiming for.
The night of February 22, I
met a man named Tom who
introduced himself as my
hand surgeon.
‘‘Ann, can you tell me if
you’re left-handed?’’
‘‘No, I’m right-handed, but
I play the fiddle.’’
‘‘Ah . . . ’’ the building
shook, lights flickered and he
looked at my crushed left
hand. ‘‘We’ll do our best.’’
But Al was having none of
that, insisting that my friends
and rescuers wouldn’t care
what notes I hit. Any notes
would do. If I didn’t start now,
I never would, he said.
So he marched me up to
Anita’s house for fiddle
lessons. Let’s just say Anita’s
patience is second only to her
musical grace. I played that
song at that party, and no-one
seemed to notice all the wrong
notes or, at least, they
pretended not to, and a good
time was had by all.
During the long and dark
winter of 2011, the terror was
ever present, but ever so
slightly starting to change.
You can hear it in the second
wave of the song, after the
first respite. The terror is
strong and steady in its
rhythm and always quick to
shove sorrow or calm aside.
It is never far away, but in
the second wave, the terror
response starts edging higher
in pitch, sounding more like
anger. Towards the end of the
second wave, during the
Christmas-New Year’s spate
of magnitude-5 quakes and a 6,
terror re-emerges.
As quickly as the new
year’s 5s eroded into 4s and 3s,
the terror got shoved out of
the way by the anger of the
Canterbury Earthquakes
Royal Commission hearings.
Christchurch City Council
engineers and inspectors
predicted what befell Colombo
St on February 22, yet the city
council did nothing to prevent
it – not even a fence. The
anger in the third wave of the
song is repetitive, insistent,
haunting and tireless.
They left us there to die.
They left us there to die. They
left us there to die.
The transition from the
third wave to the fourth is a
long time coming. The shift is
only complete when anger
turns to determination,
measured in the distance run:
30 seconds on Sumner Beach,
7km on the Harry Ell, 8km on
the roller coaster from
Sumner to Taylors Mistake,
15km in the City to Surf with
the wives of a couple of my
rescuers. The third wave
closes with 26km along the
Queen Charlotte Track.
Running, running,
running, through pain, terror,
sorrow, anger and week upon
week of winter rain. The
anger finally lets go out of
sheer exhaustion.
The fourth wave begins
again with the call of sorrow,
but the response is gentler,
insistent but not obsessive.
It’s got shadows of everything
– pain, terror, sorrow, anger
and determination, but it
continues to shift higher,
gentler, more hopeful.
Like the song, our story
has no rah-rah-sis-boom-bah
celebration at the end. It’s just
a quiet acceptance of loss and
discovery, sorrow and terror,
grief and anger, hope and
determination, pain and
healing. There is no cliche
happy ending to our song.
Both the call of sorrow and
the response of anger are
edging from the sad minor
key to a more hopeful major
key. Neither ever quite
arrives, but in the end, the
sorrow and anger fuse to form
something new entirely.
Peace, grace, calm, quiet,
forgiveness perhaps.
In the song, the call is
constant and consistent. It’s
the response that changes
through the waves. Although
the call dominates, the
response compels.
Therein lies our story. We
are powerless over the call, of
pain and sorrow at lost
yesterdays and forever
changed tomorrows, but the
response is in our hands.
We can’t control pain, but
we can control our response.
Man is born neither a hero
nor a coward, but makes
himself as such.
Sometimes healing is not
about getting over it or
moving on. Sometimes
healing is about accepting the
pain we cannot change and
allowing it to become a part of
us. Perhaps if we do, the
shadows of sorrow, terror,
grief and anger will fuse to
form the kindness, patience,
gentleness, empathy, and
heroism that we all
experienced in early 2011.
Like the song, healing
comes in waves. From sorrow,
terror, grief and anger, to a
tentative but calming hope.
We are entering the wave of
grace and hope.
It is time.
Freedom just another word for nothing left to lose
‘I
t’s a free country.’’ Ask
someone if it’s OK to sit
down, make a coffee, or
take a squiz at the paper, and
chances are you’ll receive this
stock response. But just
because a phrase is oft
repeated doesn’t make it
untrue. Ours is a free, open
and democratic society,
where all that isn’t expressly
forbidden is permitted.
Isn’t it?
Just a few days ago, I was
chatting with a group of
young New Zealanders and
the conversation turned to
blogs and blogging. My
companions were all
intelligent, well-educated and
gainfully employed Kiwis, yet
I was staggered to learn that
none of them was willing to
either post or comment on a
blog using their own name.
Chris
Trotter
Why were they so
unwilling to put their names
to their thoughts? What did
they think would happen to
them if they did? This is New
Zealand, I reminded them
with a puzzled frown. We’re
not living in Putin’s Russia or
North Korea. This is still ‘‘a
free country’’.
They gave me that weary,
gently condescending look
which Gen-Xers reserve for
baby-boomers who just don’t
have a clue what life is like for
people who didn’t grow up in
the 1960s and 1970s.
‘‘If I apply for a job’’, said
one, ‘‘I don’t want my
prospective employer to
Google my name and be
confronted with a whole
series of fiery Left-wing rants
on controversial subjects.’’
‘‘It can hurt you
professionally’’, said another,
‘‘if your boss reads something
you’ve written on a blog that
he or she finds objectionable.
It can harm your career
prospects.’’
‘‘Or get you fired.’’
This was too much. Had
none of them heard of the Bill
of Rights Act? The Human
Rights Act? The Employment
Relations Act? All New
Zealanders are guaranteed the
freedom of expression. It is
illegal to be discriminated
against on the basis of one’s
beliefs. No-one can be sacked
for having an opinion – no
matter how controversial.
‘‘Maybe not in your day,’’
responded my young
companions, ‘‘back when
unions were strong and a civil
service job was for life. But
things are different now.
Everyone’s vulnerable.’’
And, of course, they were
right. As we argued back and
forth I suddenly recalled the
extraordinary content of a
recorded conversation
broadcast on Radio New
Zealand’s Morning Report on
Monday, December 10 – just a
few days earlier.
Todd Rippon, a Lord of the
Rings tour guide employed by
Wellington-based Rover
Tours Ltd, was fighting to
keep his job after the
communication of negative
‘‘feedback’’ to his employer,
Scott Courtney, by the staff of
Absolutely Positively
Wellington Tourism. Rippon’s
offence? To have spoken in
less than glowing terms about
Sir Peter Jackson – a charge
which Rippon emphatically
denies.
Listening to the recording,
however, it soon became clear
that the offence Rippon’s boss
objected to most strenuously
was his employee’s active
participation in the Actors’
Equity union.
‘‘You’re involved with an
organisation that is
completely at odds with what
I do’’, Courtney told his
employee, even though
Rippon’s work as a tour guide
was quite separate from his
career as a professional actor
and his role as the vice-
president of his union.
Also clear was that
Tourism New Zealand – a
body with which Courtney’s
firm works very closely –
harboured similar misgivings
concerning Rippon’s
associations.
When Rippon asked his
boss: ‘‘And what about the
pressure from Tourism New
Zealand? Do you think that
it’s harming you that I’m
working for you?’’ Courtney
replied: ‘‘Yes, I do.’’
‘‘Because Tourism New
Zealand disapproves?’’
‘‘It will be something that
is always at the back of their
mind.’’
This admission by
Courtney is deeply troubling.
Tourism New Zealand has no
legitimate interest
whatsoever in the groups with
‘It’s a basic human
right to be a
member of a
union!’
‘No, no, no!’’
Courtney snaps
back. ‘It’s not!’
whom Rippon chooses to
exercise his statutory right to
freedom of association.
It got worse.
The industrial dispute
between Actors’ Equity and
Sir Peter Jackson over the
filming of The Hobbit had
appalled Rippon’s boss: ‘‘I am
disgusted with what the
Actors’ Equity union did and
what their position is. It
affects me, it affects my
business. I don’t believe what
they did was right. And it’s
not something I want my
company, or anyone involved
with my company, to be
involved with.’’
When Rippon objects: ‘‘You
can’t set me aside because I
belong to that.’’ Courtney
replies: ‘‘But I can! You see,
this is the point.’’
‘‘You can’t do that!’’
protests Rippon. ‘‘It’s a basic
human right to be a member
of a union!’’
‘‘No, no, no!’’ Courtney
snaps back. ‘‘It’s not!’’
It is difficult to imagine a
better demonstration of the
gulf which now exists
between the theory and
practice of democratic
citizenship in contemporary
New Zealand.
A free country? If only!