A measure of sunshine

“Have you got sun over there today?” he asks, texting from Taupo. “Not if shadows are a measure of sunshine” I reply, the cloud cover keeping the rays hidden from us. My friend used to live an easy two hour's drive away, the state highway now a mass of crevasses and broken bridges, an impossible journey. The ground closer to home is both vibrant and sodden, silt and rotting vegetables in contrast to our normally parched summer landscape.

Sunshine is what we need here in Hawke’s Bay, the idyllic region devastated by Cyclone Gabrielle. The fruit bowl of New Zealand, the resort town, the Art Deco hub, a destination for wedding parties and retirees. Too much water, in too little time, has wreaked havoc, taking lives, destroying livelihoods.

Heavy rain on my roof nearly a fortnight after the event has me on edge, the adrenalin pumping through my body. I dream of throwing bags into my tiny car, of searching fruitlessly for my passport, of forgetting important things. Yet I am lucky – we are safe.

We all scramble to get back to normality, every person taking a different approach, having a different perspective. I’m making lists: a transistor radio; ready to eat Weetbix, not porridge; a circular bucket for waste. I am surprised I can cope without hot showers or power, but grateful for neighbours who can boil water for tea, as we talk and cry together.

I am reading a book on stoicism, the ancient philosophy and practice of living well. Reasons Not to Worry puts a contemporary spin on it, exploring helpful tools to guide our thinking – one of the few things we have absolute control over. I want an image for this post, and choose the day before the storm, a harbinger of things to come. 




At work, I nurture ideas about supporting our teams, emerging from the depth of the crisis, to face the long road ahead. Yes, these words sound trite, but it will be a long haul. There are practical considerations to make sure the mahi gets done. These are visible, tangible, and can be planned and recorded. But my role will focus on the psychosocial impacts, the underlying fears and frustrations that emerge after a natural disaster, the signs and symptoms not so clearly defined. The resilience that is strong now, rising and falling like the tide.

And if shadow is a measure of sunshine, I’ll be keeping an eye out for that too.

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