Today

Today it is ten years since the Christchurch earthquake. The city where I spent my university years and met my husband, the second city of New Zealand, the city that had always been the major centre my family visited as I was growing up, the city I love changed completely ten years ago today. Now when I go, I need to use GPS, because so many of the major landmarks that helped me navigate are gone. There has been a major service today broadcast on national radio, and I will admit I shed a little tear as I heard the karanga, a Maori ceremonial call to begin proceedings. I haven’t visited the city for over four years, but I know it is still recovering.

Today is the beginning of the first week when my husband and I have (almost) no work to do on the in-laws’ house. It went on the market yesterday, with a deadline set for 9 March, and now we wait. We might even sneak away for a few nights somewhere. Our house is full of their things, of course. The Husband still has to go through some of them, deciding whether to scan documents and photos, etc. And we also have boxes for each of his brothers, taking up space, until we can arrange to post to them or (less likely) they can come and visit. Still, the urgency has gone. It’s a weird feeling, knowing that we are free.

Today I started a 30 Day Yoga Challenge. I’ve done them before, but over the last year I’ve really slipped with yoga, and I’ve decided I’ve noticed a decline in my core strength, and hence have had some back issues crop up again. (Though scrubbing and cleaning windows etc at the in-laws’ house has also been to blame). So by declaring I’m starting the challenge, I might actually feel the peer pressure to do it! I know I won’t do it in 30 Days. But I hope to stick to that if at all possible.

Today the sky is blue, I can hear the cicadas calling loudly outside my window, and the temperature shows that summer is still here. We’d hope that it would last until March, but we live in Wellington, and summer here is notoriously fickle! So we take each day as it comes. And so far this summer, we haven’t had any hot days (even for us), a few pleasantly warm days, and a lot of semi-warm/not really cold days! We’ve had meals out on the deck with friends, and the other night we had drinks on our deck with friends, going inside as the temperature dipped when the sun itself dipped behind the western hills. Tonight we’re planning a barbecue just for the two of us, because we never know if it will be our last chance. Summer in Wellington. We never take it for granted. It teaches us mindfulness, and taking joy in the moment. That’s not a bad thing.