Rediscovering Christchurch - going in to the red zone

[rumpelsnorcack]

Comments

[sea_thoughts]

I went back to my university town for my birthday and was shocked by all the new buildings that had sprung up for student accommodation. Ten years ago, when I was at university there, student accommodation was ONLY on campus and anything in the town was privately owned.

I can't imagine how it must feel to go back to a city and find things torn down and not even there. *hug* I'm glad you were able to go and confront the reality, even though it was hard for you.

[rumpelsnorcack]

*hugs back* thanks. It is always a shock when you return somewhere once familiar and find it unrecognisible, isn't it? I think with this one it's just because there's so much and it's all happened so fast.

[lorelaisquared]

*hugs* This is a beautiful post my dear. I commend you in your bravery for doing this and for writing about it. I know that it wasn't easy for you but I think it's good you did it.

Beautifully written.

*hugs*

[rumpelsnorcack]

Thank you :)

I was very nervous about writing this one but I think it needed to be said. It's loomed far too much in this city for far too long.

*hugs back*

[katdakiwi]

Hugs, thank you for sharing that. Its solidified my decision to go. As I was talking with you about work and getting the time off to go, a good friend offered to cover my shift to go which was sweet. I had hoped she might come with me to help her heal from her trauma of the day but I will not push her into coming, and I respect her reasons behind not going. She needs to grieve in her own time and her own way.

[rumpelsnorcack]

I think if you want to go you definitely should go. It's not a fun place to be, but I feel like I needed it. But yeah, lots of people don't want to go because their process is different and eventually it will be open again and everyone can go through in their own time. I just felt like, for me, it needed to be sooner rather than later.

[mollywheezy]

"It's hard to explain just what it's like to have your mental picture of a place suddenly changed like that, from something that is horrific but only imagined into something else that is different, no less horrific and all too real. It's an odd feeling, and impossible to articulate."

Very well said. That sums up how it was for me to go to Ground Zero a few months after 9/11. But that wasn't my city, just in my country.

I have not returned to New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina, because I want to remember New Orleans as it was when I was in college, and not how much it was changed by the destruction.

I commend your bravery in going.

Sending you good thoughts and prayers. *HUGS*

[rumpelsnorcack]

Thank you (and sending lots of good thoughts and wishes your way too)

I can't even conceive what Ground Zero must have been like because it was such a different experience again. I can well imagine that sense of something bigger than its parts though - it's certainly a place that would lend itself to that.

I know a lot of people who feel the same way about our city as you do about New Orleans. Those comments come out a lot and I think if I wasn't here I might be the same. I have taken to finding as many pre-quake pictures as I can just to remember. I don't want 'what is' to overcome 'what was' too much, because 'what was' meant a lot to me and I don't want to lose it.

[promethia_tenk]

I'm glad you got in to see it and that you're happy with having done so. I can't pretend to be able to imagine what that's like, and it's horrible to hear what's going to happen with the cathedral, but as you said before, at least now people can have a choice to go see.

*hugs*

[rumpelsnorcack]

*hugs back* thank you. It wasn't as horrible as I thought it would be, but it was very sobering. I'm glad everyone has the chance now if they want to take it. It's good for people to be able to process in whatever way they feel is right for them.