Earthquake update 20/9

An aftershock of 4.6 woke me at 12.30 this morning.  Stephen’s comforting presence, plus our lack of damage, have enabled me to sleep as soundly as I did Before Quake, and I went straight back to sleep.  I’m aware that many people are having great difficulty sleeping at all.  A rise in domestic violence has been recorded.  How many are taking unusual risks, simply because they can’t bear to sleep alone? 

I have several friends whose homes have significant damage.  Some are sleeping in them (or trying to) despite this, others have moved out.  The future of such buildings is often unclear because it takes time for engineers to check everything thoroughly.  I can only begin to imagine the stress such uncertainty causes.

At a meeting with friends yesterday I picked up a book of ‘Womenpsalms’  published in the U.S.A. in 1992, which fell open at a poem by Ann Perrin: “One Woman’s Response to an Earthquake”.  Part of it reads:

A wooden doorframe
the safest place for me.
I stand on the threshold,
grounded in the present,
clinging to that which frames me,
a pillar to the left,
a pillarto the right.

I stand still
though I really want to run.
I stand on the threshold,
my back to the past.
I look to the future,
facing straight ahead,
My arms stretch out,
clutching the wood on either side.
My heart is spread open
in hope and fear.

Oh, my God!
Oh, my MaMa Earth!
There is a shift
in the chambers below.
You have midwifed
a change
deep within my being.

I leave my wooden doorframe
to be with another.
“May I sit with you awhile?”
I ask, trembling from within.
Communion is yearned for,
companionship sought.

“Where were you when the earthquake happened?”
we question one another.
I was on a threshold
hanging on to life!