I have my suspicions about their motives, but some of my siblings have jokingly suggested that in the interests of world safety, perhaps I should stay well away from them.
They point to the facts that my youngest sister was visiting me at the time of the September 11 attack on the twin towers and on at least two of my visits to my small home town there have been deaths from accidents there.
More recently, I was there when all hope was lost at the Pike River mine and present again at the time of the Christchurch earthquake.
Were we in danger of ignoring the signs something bad was about to happen? After all, 24 hours before the quake my sister and I had found a ram shuddering in his death throes beside the track we were walking, far away from any flock. He had no ear-marking.
Why was he there? What did it mean?I have not wanted to scare the family unnecessarily or have them assign the thought police to my case, so I have not told them that research into my mad scribbling over the years might reveal that around disasters some of my most frivolous work has been published.
I still cringe at the column which appeared on the day of the twin towers collapse.
"Desultory thoughts on a dizzy spring morning" was its headline.
My only consolation is that, consumed by the New York tragedy, nobody read this waffle about starlings and spring. I did it again a fortnight ago, with my talk of A and P show scone competitions, country rambling and blackberry and apple pies, appearing the day after the Christchurch quake.
In typical clanger mode, I also referred to my youngest sister as the Earthquake Baby (her conception having occurred in the aftermath of the 1968 Inangahua quake). Again, I take succour from the likelihood very few people actually read it.
The Christchurch earthquake shows how easily some scared people can reject science or sense in favour of superstition and fear.
There seems to be a reluctance, among some, to realise that there is much over which we have no control and that life is never a straightforward business with every event capable of being plotted and planned.
In a quest to make sense of the unexplainable, it is easy to be selective about information and get it to fit your fears.
In the case of my family visits, we can conveniently overlook those times when nothing dire happened in the near vicinity, but I am sure we could find plenty of ghastly things happening in other parts of the world on those occasions and draw any number of silly conclusions.
From afar, I can only imagine what it is like to live in Christchurch at this time, but even at a distance the earthquake aftermath is unsettling. Part of it is feeling remote.
We know the importance of raising money for the cause, but it seems rather impersonal help. And I have a heightened awareness of danger generally, which may not be particularly rational.
I apologise now to those people who may have been frustrated by my ridiculously cautious driving north of Christchurch on my journey home about a week ago.
The reason was the dramatic notion that the good police in Christchurch had enough to worry about without having to attend any fatal car crashes caused by me.
Since getting home I have tried to work out the best place to be in my house in a quake. The jury is still out on that one. Consulting the scientist in the family just confused me more.
When I am out, I eye up buildings which could be likely to topple, I wonder about being trapped in lifts, and the suitability of stairwells.
Earthquakes pervade my dreams, including a recent one where I was diligently dividing rubble into my old school colours. Given that the colours were dark and light blue and I was never a favoured daughter of my alma mater (which was not in Christchurch), my nuttiness is all too evident.
When I arrived home from Murchison, waiting on my doorstep was a Patty Griffin CD containing a track called No Bad News.
I eschew the radio earthquake coverage on my way to and from work, and play that track over and over, belting out the line "Don't bring me bad news, no bad news, I don't need none of your bad news today".
I like to think the Christchurch people would find it satisfying to sing along with me, even if though it would change nothing. Call it earthquake madness.
• Elspeth McLean is a Dunedin writer.
