Teetering on high heels

Have you noticed how people are re-evaluating things lately? One of my favorite bloggers is Moata Tamaira, a Christchurch librarian who writes really amusing articles for stuff.co.nz
Well, they were amusing back in the times when things were normal, and even now, when things feel not at all normal, she still manages to put a funny spin on life.
Last week, she was on about the changes in her wardrobe – how she’s chucked away her favorite high heels because they’re not just useless on uneven ground but actually feel unsafe. She also talks about how she now walks alongside walls in a state of constant calculation…as in, how sound is that wall? How far would she have to run if it began to topple?
I even find myself doing it here in non-quaky Auckland. I went to a play in the old Mercury Theatre last week, and as I walked up the street I took a long look at its huge rear wall of century-old bricks. I wonder how well that would do in an earthquake, I was thinking.
And then, after Japan, I stood on a hill above a beach and watched the sea do strange things, surging up a creek and pouring back out in a cascade of foam to form a big spiral in the bay - nothing like the huge whirlpool we saw on our TV screens after the big quake and tsunami, but echoing its shape. Nearly 9000 kilometres from Japan, we are, but there was the evidence of trouble far away.
2011 is turning out to be a very weird year, but it’s also making us think about what’s really important…which is people, of course. Always has been. But we seem to need a few shocks every now and again to remind us of that.