Hot and Bothered in the City
Yesterday, tamswitter and I decided to get together and have a day out and about. We took my kids into the city first because it was supposed to rain and we wanted to be undercover when it came. As an aside - don't believe weather reports! I expected cold, miserable weather and ended up sweltering because it was sunny, warm and still. Anyway, the original purpose of the trip was to take the kids to see the Ballantynes Christmas windows. This is an annual tradition now and people go into Cashel Street just to look at them. I still have vivid memories of last year when we walked Summer's kindy kids through that area to have a look (after being dropped off at the cathedral first). Even though Cashel Street looks nothing like itself there was something really lovely in being able to do something so normal in the city again this year. To be honest the windows were a little lacklustre, but going at all means an awful lot and the kids seemed to like it.
That was a lovely contrast to what we did next. Without any fanfare at all just over a week ago CERA announced that they were opening a walkway into the Square for the next 3 weekends, so while we were there we decided to go in. To set the tone, you walk past a sign that announces that 'you might not survive' while in there if a quake hits. I understand why they have done that, and I know there are still dangerous buildings around the area, but it seems overkill. After all 'you might not survive' anywhere in the city if another quake hits. Anyway, we set off from the end of the container mall along the short walk to the Square, and the first thing that hit when we walked past was the smell from the fastfood places. Along that small strip had been a McDonalds, a Burger King, Subway and a sushi place and the fenced walkway takes you very close to the first two. Along with the smell, you can also still see the remains of peoples' lunches which brings it all home just how suddenly our world changed. This was also emphasised on the way in to the container mall when as I was walking past The Tap Room restaurant, Tammie got me to look in one of their windows and you can see plates, wine glasses half full, all covered in dust but obviously abandoned in a hurry. It's surreal - it looks like a movie set, and yet it's real. That was someone's real lunch, their real life interrupted and now left caught up as a memory of a moment in time. I've seen pictures of this type of thing before, but there was something about seeing it for myself that hammered it home.
Being in the square itself was odd. On one hand, if you squinted and ignored the fencing it could almost feel like you were back in the past, where people just hung out in the sun and kids climbed on things and just enjoyed themselves. But behind that feeling was the weird sense of wrongness - first that we weren't allowed out of the place. The walkway is fenced off and you're not allowed out of the area and so many of the things that are supposed to be there are just gone. The buildings that are missing stick out like a sore thumb, and yet it's hard to recall exactly what belonged in each hole. It's quite distressing having lost even the memory after being locked out for so long. And that's without mentioning the cathedral which sits there, its broken presence looming over everything. It's even harder to see when you're walking around the space than it is from the bus because through a bus window your view is narrowed and you don't have to confront its brokenness for too long. I'm glad they are finally giving people the chance to do what they've wanted to since February - sit, look, grieve in their own time and people are keen to do it. They apparently expected 20,000 people over the three weekends to walk in, they actually got 25,000 last weekend alone. It just goes to show that people are still invested in the city, and however hard it is to do it, being able to connect with part of the city again and the amounts of people who still care about the place - those are two really good things to get from this experience. There hasn't been the exodus of people uninterested in our central space, despite a growing loss of hope, and I'm happy to see that. To get through this at all, I personally have to cling to the idea that there will be a rebirth and we will get a central city again and it will be somewhere people want to be and go.
Whew! I didn't mean to get quite so involved in that part of my day, but it was quite 'large' in my emotional day, I guess. The rest of the day was much less confronting. We went out and the kids were thirsty and hungry so we took them to one of the container cafes for a drink and a bagel. That was a nice way to wind down from the experience in the square - we were still close by, still in the city and yet being in the reborn part acted like a bit of a buffer. However sad the square is at the moment, the re:start mall shows that a new city, even a temporary one, can be a bright, happy place and that one day, hopefully soon, the square itself can be somewhere people can actually gather again.
Anyway, from there we made our way back to the museum where they are showing an exhibition of the World of Wearable Arts winners. Even the kids were entranced by them, and Tammie and I were able to spend a lot of time wandering around looking at them. We weren't however, allowed to look at anything else in the museum and were marched off to the Discovery room (though I did get to sneak her past the hearts for Christchurch on our way to Discovery). From there we went through the gardens and back to the car. More than ever yesterday, being in there really lifted my mood - I can never go in there and remain down or in a funk, but yesterday after the walk to the square it as an even better feeling. I think I'll leave it there - we did go to the movies and saw 'When a City Falls' and it was even more brutal the second time. But I don't need to go into that - remembering the peace and happiness in the gardens is where I want to be right now :D
That was a lovely contrast to what we did next. Without any fanfare at all just over a week ago CERA announced that they were opening a walkway into the Square for the next 3 weekends, so while we were there we decided to go in. To set the tone, you walk past a sign that announces that 'you might not survive' while in there if a quake hits. I understand why they have done that, and I know there are still dangerous buildings around the area, but it seems overkill. After all 'you might not survive' anywhere in the city if another quake hits. Anyway, we set off from the end of the container mall along the short walk to the Square, and the first thing that hit when we walked past was the smell from the fastfood places. Along that small strip had been a McDonalds, a Burger King, Subway and a sushi place and the fenced walkway takes you very close to the first two. Along with the smell, you can also still see the remains of peoples' lunches which brings it all home just how suddenly our world changed. This was also emphasised on the way in to the container mall when as I was walking past The Tap Room restaurant, Tammie got me to look in one of their windows and you can see plates, wine glasses half full, all covered in dust but obviously abandoned in a hurry. It's surreal - it looks like a movie set, and yet it's real. That was someone's real lunch, their real life interrupted and now left caught up as a memory of a moment in time. I've seen pictures of this type of thing before, but there was something about seeing it for myself that hammered it home.
Being in the square itself was odd. On one hand, if you squinted and ignored the fencing it could almost feel like you were back in the past, where people just hung out in the sun and kids climbed on things and just enjoyed themselves. But behind that feeling was the weird sense of wrongness - first that we weren't allowed out of the place. The walkway is fenced off and you're not allowed out of the area and so many of the things that are supposed to be there are just gone. The buildings that are missing stick out like a sore thumb, and yet it's hard to recall exactly what belonged in each hole. It's quite distressing having lost even the memory after being locked out for so long. And that's without mentioning the cathedral which sits there, its broken presence looming over everything. It's even harder to see when you're walking around the space than it is from the bus because through a bus window your view is narrowed and you don't have to confront its brokenness for too long. I'm glad they are finally giving people the chance to do what they've wanted to since February - sit, look, grieve in their own time and people are keen to do it. They apparently expected 20,000 people over the three weekends to walk in, they actually got 25,000 last weekend alone. It just goes to show that people are still invested in the city, and however hard it is to do it, being able to connect with part of the city again and the amounts of people who still care about the place - those are two really good things to get from this experience. There hasn't been the exodus of people uninterested in our central space, despite a growing loss of hope, and I'm happy to see that. To get through this at all, I personally have to cling to the idea that there will be a rebirth and we will get a central city again and it will be somewhere people want to be and go.
Whew! I didn't mean to get quite so involved in that part of my day, but it was quite 'large' in my emotional day, I guess. The rest of the day was much less confronting. We went out and the kids were thirsty and hungry so we took them to one of the container cafes for a drink and a bagel. That was a nice way to wind down from the experience in the square - we were still close by, still in the city and yet being in the reborn part acted like a bit of a buffer. However sad the square is at the moment, the re:start mall shows that a new city, even a temporary one, can be a bright, happy place and that one day, hopefully soon, the square itself can be somewhere people can actually gather again.
Anyway, from there we made our way back to the museum where they are showing an exhibition of the World of Wearable Arts winners. Even the kids were entranced by them, and Tammie and I were able to spend a lot of time wandering around looking at them. We weren't however, allowed to look at anything else in the museum and were marched off to the Discovery room (though I did get to sneak her past the hearts for Christchurch on our way to Discovery). From there we went through the gardens and back to the car. More than ever yesterday, being in there really lifted my mood - I can never go in there and remain down or in a funk, but yesterday after the walk to the square it as an even better feeling. I think I'll leave it there - we did go to the movies and saw 'When a City Falls' and it was even more brutal the second time. But I don't need to go into that - remembering the peace and happiness in the gardens is where I want to be right now :D