I'm sitting in our sun room, soaking up the warmth of the autumn afternoon. It's fall break here, and the kids and I are (mostly) enjoying the downtime. They've made slime and peanut butter fudge (separate batches, as far as I know). They've watched too many YouTube videos and helped me walk Moses around the block. Now they're digging through the craft closet looking for something else to make today. Those two are always looking for something to make :)
The days are getting shorter and cooler in New Zealand, and I love the reminder of home this season brings. Fall was always my favorite time of year in America. The cool mornings and nights remind me of high school football games, pumpkin patches and apple harvest festivals. Of course, we're celebrating Easter this weekend instead of carving pumpkins. The reversed seasons still don't make a bit of sense to me. But I have a feeling the bunny will bring us chocolates just the same. ;)
I haven't been writing in a long time. I've tried to write. I have drafts of blog posts saved to my computer. I'll open one and tinkle with it, then get frustrated a few sentences in. There are things I've wanted to say and couldn't find a way. Things I started to say and couldn't finish. It's rare for me to have trouble writing, and I take it as a sign. Of what...I'm not sure.
I'm distracted right now by an unhappy houseplant. The edges of his leaves have been drying out and I can't figure out why. I've watered him more, watered him less, moved him to three different spots in the house hoping for a cure. But he's still grumpy. Alive, just grumpy...(a bit like Shane, I guess ;) And the amount of time I've spent worrying about the poor fellow is getting a bit ridiculous, I know. :)
I need to get back on track. I need to get my thoughts together. I need to stop circling and distracting from the one thought that's been overwhelming me for the last month.
The shooting in Christchurch.
That's when I stopped being able to finish my sentences.
The shooting changed everything for New Zealand, and for us.
Our last years living in the U.S. were spent in high alert after school shootings and public shootings and church shootings and terrible shootings too close to home made fear part of our daily lives. I experienced anxiety in any public place, always looking for an exit, a place to hide, gauging how quickly I could grab my kids and get them to safety.
I brought that anxiety here with me, and it'd make my Kiwi friends laugh. I'd reach out for their hands at the sound of a loud noise, ready to run. Once when walking along a beautiful beachside trail with my good friend, we saw a man heading toward us with a long stick. I thought for sure he had a gun, and I grabbed my friend's thigh to pull her from view. She thought I was crazy, especially when the man got closer, revealing a harmless weed sprayer in his hands. "What's wrong with you Americans??" she laughed.
What's wrong with us?
For nearly two years in New Zealand, our family lived without fear of public shootings. My anxiety calmed. I sent my kids to school without dread. I stopped looking for exit signs. I relaxed our house rules about playing with toy guns and stopped making the kids say "pew things" or "shooter" instead of that word. Gun. Call me a crazy liberal. Rant at me about the Second Amendment. I am what I am. And fear makes us all do strange things.
My first thought after news of the Christchurch shooting was this -- "Did we ruin New Zealand?" Mass shootings, particularly in places of faith, are hardly limited to American shores, but America has become known, especially abroad, as the land of public shootings. Kids here routinely ask me I've ever "been in a shoot out." I can't even imagine what they think America must be like to ask this question of me.
And in my shock and sadness after Christchurch -- while doing something I got so used to doing back home, checking the news, watching the death toll climb, seeing what brand of hatred was behind this attack -- I felt a sense of guilt. Had we, the Americans, somehow infected this beautiful place with the hate and fear we fled at home.
Of course not. We had nothing to do with it. America had nothing to do with it. Even New Zealanders weren't really to blame, as the shooter came from Australia with a special vendetta against this peaceful, tolerant nation. But still....
The event changed everything. For days, tears rolled down my cheeks any time I thought of it. Sadness over the loss of life, of course, but also the loss of innocence for this great nation. I know what it's like to live in fear of hate. I know what that does to your community, your relationships, your spirit. I've seen anger and violence erode many of the things I love about America. And I don't want that to happen to our beloved New Zealand too.
Rays of hope: Jacinda, our prime minister, and her government creating a broad coalition to take quick action in changing the gun laws. Kiwis speaking out as a community, saying, as one, "Ours is a nation of love, not hate. We won't accept this. We won't allow it to happen again." And even, amazingly, "We're willing to give up our guns for peace."
Will these actions make a difference? Goodness I hope so.
New Zealand has much to be proud of in how it responded to this act of evil, and the world may even learn something from our tragedy. But I'm not sure what I've learned yet. Perhaps that why I've had such a hard time putting this experience into words.
In one of the blog drafts I wrote over the last month, I focused on the multicultural nature of New Zealand, how it's truly an immigrant's nation:
"People come here from other places," I wrote, "Even the Maori who landed on these shores 800 years ago. Many 'Pakeha' -- or white New Zealanders -- hold on to their European heritage, playing bagpipes in the local parades and serving scones at afternoon tea. Residents with South Pacific roots -- Tongan, Samoan, Fijian -- tend to feel a close connection to their home islands and fly those flags on their Auckland homes. Large communities of Chinese, Indian, Australian and South African immigrants live alongside people from the Philippines, Japan, Malaysia and countries all over the world...."
In another draft, I contemplated the country's national anthem, a beautiful hymn that always makes me tear up.
"For months after we arrived in New Zealand, I would cry every time I heard the country's national anthem, " I wrote. "I'm not talking Hallmark commercial tears but the bite-the-lip and wipe-the-drops-before-they-roll-down-your-cheek kind of crying. A bit full-on for a New Zealand newbie. :) It was embarrassing but not entirely my fault. The song is beautiful, a prayer for peace with verses sung in both Te Reo Maori (the language of NZ's first people) and English. And I usually hear it sung at the Adorables' school; something about schoolkids singing gets me every time, even when it's just a rendition of Baby Shark ;)
"As I learned the words and began singing along, I especially loved the opening lines of the first English verse:
'God of nations at thy feet,
In the bonds of love we meet.'
"I'm not sure the writer's intention for these lines, but I interpret it as a call to prayer from a small people in a small country at the foot of God and, indeed, the world, brought together by love."
Love. For country, for each other, for the beautiful land that makes New Zealand so special. It's that love that beats in the hearts of New Zealand's many different people, who came from many different places to end up here -- the foot of the world, the beautiful, peaceful ends of the earth.
It's that love that welcomed and comforted our anxious American hearts, before the events in Christchurch and even after.
With that love, I think we'll all be OK.
