Craig Denham, (the musician I have collaborated with for the last 10 years) and I have just spent the week in Christchurch as part of the Christchurch Arts Festival Schools programmes. Our visit coincided with a ‘polar blast’ that saw the city snow bound for two days and schools close. We both agreed it was all pretty surreal – being here in Christchurch for the first time since the February quake but not really being here because we were stuck in our motel rooms. The experience kind of summed up how I’ve felt about the whole situation for sometime – a ‘Claytons experience’ – the kind of experience you have when you’re not really having the experience. Perhaps the media is turning are lives into one big ‘claytons experience’.  We see things, we hear about things but we’re all still in our comfy motel rooms with the heater on.

When finally the snow started to melt and the schools re opened, we were able to share stories and I talked with the children about them telling their stories from the last year. One boy summed it up. Life in Christchurch of late had been a ‘freaky’ story. Yep I have to agree – it’s kind of freaky to see the rampart of shipping containers line the road out to Sumner keeping the crumbling cliffs at bay, it’s kind of freaky  for city roads in NZ to be so lumpy and pot holed and to see half -houses clinging to cliffs. Everyone I talk to – in the chemist, in the toy shop,  in the hotel reception, tells me their story. The lady in the chemist shop explains the bright coloured patches on the black carpet were where products smashed to the floor. We agree it looks kind of nice and she says, ” You know you realize now that those sorts of things really don’t matter.” The man in the toy shop salvaging his stock for the second time in six months jokes, ” I would have topped myself had someone told me last year what was ahead.” We agree it’s just as well we don’t know what life has in store. ” Still,” he adds, “we rarely see the bigger picture.”  Others talk about the  humility experienced by the generosity of others and nearly everyone mentions Japan and how the people have suffered there. It appears that all that shaking has produced a city of insightful philosophisers and passing conversation has a new depth. Still there’s ‘broken open’ and just ‘broken’ – not everyone has fared so well.I was talking to a relative on the phone tonight. She lives out near where the first epicentre was in September. Her daughter works in the mental health sector and she says the situation is grim. Apparently the services are straining to cope with the numbers of people who need their help. The billboard on the edge of the road with the sad human form curled into a fetal – like position summed it up ‘Our buildings weren’t the only things broken by the quake.’ And you feel it, your hear it – the city’s lamentation.

You suddenly see how important storytelling is in times like these. It can make people laugh and shake off anxieties for a time, it provides an imaginative resting place from the ‘slog’, it connects people through a shared experience and as people tell their stories, they attempt to make sense of what has happened to them and try to put things back in some semblance of order.

We have Christchurch and the snow to thank for our new story song – its a reggae tune and it goes like this (I hope we get to sing it to you one day!)

Some people think stories belong to an old time, a once upon a time, but

I’m telling you now so you’ll understand, you wake up every morning in story land

Stories on the TV, stories in the paper – they’re going get you sooner or later

Less you realize the story that counts, is story you believe in, so shout it out..

Hey wake up, open your mouth – it’s time to let your stories out

Stories make the world go round, tell your story and lets get down

Once upon a time, it’s rhyme, to keep you connected

The golden thread that binds through time, now don’t you forget it

Stories are for sharing, stories are for making, the magic works when your participating

Tell your story, tell it true, the words you choose will live inside of you