THE ORLANDO MASSACRE: KIWI IN A STRANGE LAND

While a madman with a gun opened fire inside the Pulse Nightclub in downtown Orlando I was tucked up in bed enjoying the bliss of air conditioning and sweet dreams, 25 minutes up the road.

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The club was busy and the weapon high powered, a combination that left 49 people dead, their own dreams incomplete and unfulfilled, stolen in a nightmare that included long minutes of active shooting and then a three-hour stand off.

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Countless others have had their lives shattered after the death of loved ones in an act of home-grown terrorism, the largest mass shooting in modern US history.

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There will be many more survivors, those who escaped the club, who face living with the memory of what happened and, more traumatising, the thought of what might have been but for a few centimetres, a slower run, the unlucky wrong place at the wrong time. Survivor guilt, and the close “what ifs” will be heavy baggage for many, the weight of it extending to their own family and friends too.

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I’m a recent transplant to Florida, my husband and I having relocated here as temporary residents from Napier six months ago.

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Florida has been hot, humid and a heap of fun. This state is home to an eclectic mix of cultures and lifestyles, friendly people and loads of them, massive highways, natural wonderlands and extraordinary tourist meccas like Walt Disney World.

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Americans believe that anything is possible. There is an unshakeable spirit of limitless opportunity and potential, a remnant I’m sure from Wild West days when those early explorers looked out over unknown, endless plains where the chance to create the brave new lives of their dreams lay.

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That American dream is a little bit addictive and the very best thing I have discovered from inside the contiguous 48 so far.

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Coming from the outside, though, I’m well aware the US doesn’t fare well in the eyes of the world. It’s an easy place to pick on. There’s a reputation for obsession of me, money and material that’s partly true and fully ugly.

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There is little in the way of middle ground here. There’s a vehement need to be right, and very little of the sweet peace that comes from spirited debate with no losers, when all that’s left are winners who can agree to differing opinions. There’s intolerance and impatience and little subtlety.

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America’s obsession with themselves and their rights, often without their responsibilities attached, makes this prediction easy: nothing, absolutely nothing will change to prevent the next mass shooting from happening.

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This is despite frenetic media coverage and analysis, networks vying for viewers with repetitive breaking news alerts and commentators from agenda-driven politicians to powerful lobbyists to raw survivor stories. It’s a circus which, with my compulsive need to know, I’ve invited into my living room, relieved sometimes by reruns of Seinfeld and other times by the off button.

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Why would a young man, born in a country where he is free and anything is possible, choose to take a semi-automatic weapon into one of the most popular nightclubs in downtown Orlando, with a cold, merciless heart and murder on his mind?

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The truth, I suspect, is a volatile mix of poor mental health, complicated religious beliefs, a confused man with easy access to weapons and a simmering rage with himself and the world.

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You can’t build a wall long enough or high enough to keep that kind of danger out. I’ve always known that Florida, as beautiful as it is, has a terrible tacky side full of excess and colour that especially won’t appeal to fundamentalists with a narrow view on what the world should look like.

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Weighing the risks of dangers like terrorism when you leave the relatively safe shores of home is something we all should do. Letting fear of what might be mark your future path is something I won’t ever do.

I will remember everything that is good about America and I hope you do too.