Thirty Thoughts about the Tohoku Earthquake

1. Since this earth-jolting, body-shuddering, mind-addling event has taken place, I have experienced a range of emotions, experiences and feelings that are vaguely familiar but have never been put together in this arrangement before.
2. Humility. Pure humility. Unconscious.
3. I was on a call to a client when the quake hit - it was really bloody strong and I wasn't that scared. At first. I stayed on the call. Client is king. Then as the shakes got stronger and stronger, I told her, there is an earthquake, oh my goodness (in my mind holy fuck) oh my goodness, it's really strong, it's really strong, oh my goodness (they usually subside long before this point), then I told her I'm sorry I have to go. I put the phone down, stood up to get outside and I couldn't stand up - like a ship pitching in a storm. While trying to stand up in a shopping trolley. With faulty wheels. That is 3 metres tall. The building creaks and aches and pitches. We're on the 7th floor. Outside the room, my colleague, Caroline is crouched down, near the wall asking 'what were you doing - so calm on the phone? I was banging the window telling you to get out.' I couldn't hear her for the noise of the building moving. Since moving to Japan and experiencing many small earthquakes I have dreamed about the pitching of buildings, swaying from side to side. I got it right. Well done me. The Japanese members of the client company were also outside squatting down and looking pale-faced and worried. This is when you know you're in shit street.
4. Announcement to evacuate. The alarms sound. They sound as you would imagine. LIke an air-raid siren. The security guy comes over the loud-speaker in Japanese "There's been a big earthquake, please evacuate the building. There's been a big earthquake, please evacuate the building." He says it over and over again, starting assertively. Then his voice begins to crack. I can hear blind terror in his voice. Eventually her is evidently crying. The building still sways. I go back in the room, close down the computer, grab my bag and along with everyone else head for the stairs. I'm on the 7th floor. Mercifully low. Had I been at their other location, I would have been on the 19th Floor. At the office. The 40th.
5. As I type this - 4 days later I am sitting in another reasonably strong aftershock. The kind that would make me worried usually for being pretty strong. But that just makes me pray it won't get mental. Like what I'm describing above. Because that was mental. My shackles are up, my adrenaline pumping. It has been like this for 4 days non-stop. And all I have to do to (At this point I flung my computer down because it became too much - the quake too great, the raw, visceral fear stirred and the fight or flight activated. My husband leapt out of bed and we began packing like fury all the food that I have been stockpiling, because the very real possibility of having to leave the house creeps closer as reality. I am on edge. Shackles up. Adrenaline pumping, anxiety at high level.)
6. I also realise that this fear I feel is indistinguishable from the feelings my body registers when I am in my worst rut at work. When I dread the day, when for weeks I don't know what to do - whether I am coming or going and feel dreadful each day. Now I have context and know I need to get rid of it physically. I have context for the fear. Aren't our bodies incredible? Isn't the mind a fool? It cannot distinguish between hating job and clear and present danger. At least now my sad tired overwrought mind can now make the distinction.
7. I have to make a clear separation between what is going on in the north and what I am experiencing. I watch local news to feel connected to my brothers and sisters up there. But I also want to acknowledge and own my experience of this. Because it's hard. And it's unexpected and it's humbling and it's frightening and emotional and terrifying and horrifying and funny and humorous and unusual, but by no means unique. This is my experience and I claim it as my own along with my people here.
8. What's happened in the North is cataclysmic. It seems unreal. Surreal. The houses, villages calmly and violently picked up from their foundations and carried into the land. Carrying lives and lives.
9. It's so surreal it looks like the Wizard of Oz
10. Until you add humans to it, as the later footage has. Then it shifts from surreal to very very real. And the reunions. And the pleas. And the people who watched as their people were washed away. Or they didn't make it far enough fast enough. It breaks my heart. I am heartbroken. My husband is heartbroken. I ache.
11. Today I began to imagine the land in Fukushima, Miyagi and Iwate healing and in a year from now, perhaps eighteen months, we watch as their land flourishes again. As they rebuild their homes. Re-plant their crops. And maybe, somehow the soil is more fertile. The land richer. I visualise people smiling and retelling their stories. Painting their pictures. Honoring their people in the quiet, modest and undramatic way the people of this land do. A tear gives away so much. I visualise this. I focus on this.
12. I think of leaving every day. Not for good but until this island has stopped shifting and breaking and flooding. I want to. I want to go visit my people in Australia. A place that heals me deeply and that I feel such a strong connection with. So many open hearts and minds there. A place where the people understand me and I them But not too much.
13. I dream of swimming in the pool, walking along the beach, being friends with the sea. Sitting at my computer planning and plotting and writing. Walking for miles. Cycling. Eating foods that will nourish me. Regaining my independence and sense of myself. Maybe finding somewhere to be on my own. The more I write the greater my perspective. These things I want to happen can happen and will happen. Perhaps in different contexts. They will happen.
14. Again as I type, the earth gently rolls beneath me. No rest here. Except for my husband who is sounds asleep.
15. I think of heading back to England for an extended stay. Doing my Mindmap mastery. Seeking out a good coaching course. Coming back - giving away a hundred hours of coaching for free as I strive to be accredited. Making my life work on my terms and owning it and it fills me with exhilaration, which feels not unlike fear. But makes the corners of the mouth move up.
16. Aftershock = another earthquake. Don't be fooled.
17. When the big one hit on Friday Caroline and I ended up walking home. Props to her - 10 km in heels, I had flats on. Thank God.
18. Attitude is everything.
19. Once we had ascertained that walking home was infact the best option, we got on with it. I sussed it out on Google maps and we got alongside the tracks and followed them home. We had a couple of Korean Boys tagging along with us who were so affronted by the idea of walking that they were going to queue for a taxi. I told them we were walking and they could follow me. Caroline and I decided we would treat each station as a milestone and do a happy dance to herald it. At the first station we did a happy dance. Perhaps something like you might see Chandler or Joey doing off Friends. We remarked upon just how quick we'd been and how super it was that we had reached our first milestone then moved on with s spring in our step. The boys came up and were like 'are we only at the first station, oh my God, that took ages' and skulked along in misery and disbelief.
20. 18.
21. There were hundreds and hundreds of people walking home. It was surreal. Did I mention all the trains had stopped and were out for the night? One of my friends took 12 hours to walk home. That is one helluva walk. It was also remotely pleasant. Everyone quietly getting on with their walk. Some in helmets. Some on bikes (many people bought bicycles to get themselves home). Swathes and swathes of people on the streets. Very strange.
22. Monday and Tuesday also saw the streets full of people walking to and from work. Me included. I didn't fancy getting into the Subway. It would have been truly truly terrifying to be in the deepest Subway when the quake hit. Terrifying. Because it was strong. Really really strong. And the subways are deep. And then people would be trapped inside for a long time, perhaps between stations. Perhaps in the dark. Unaware of what was happening.
23. I have never witnessed anything like that tsunami in my life.
24. The following days were a mixture of anger (directed largely at my husband), horror, sadness, optimism, fear, questions, raw, white-hot fear, moderate fear, heartbreak, a whole range of emotion in new and different shades and colours.
25. Like I said before, I can't mix up the feelings I have with the feelings I have about the people in the North. I am connected but my experience is different. Feeling guilty about not being as bad as them is useful to noone. Feeling empathy and prayers and thinking about them; Really focussed thinking is. I love them.
26. Now I sit, one eye on Facebook; One eye on the glass of water on the table that tells me whether I am imagining the swaying.
27. The Prime-minister's right-hand man has been on TV more or less constantly since the disaster. I love him.
28. The PM himself has been to the Nuclear Power plant with the problems. Props.
29. I am scared and I want to leave.
30. I love Japan.