The rumble starts inside you. It is like a split second warning of what is to come. Your mind doesn't even have time to process, all it can think is that something is happening. Then you hear the rattling and feel the shaking. Beneath your feet, it is moving: the floor, the ground. Your structure is moving: your house, your office - wherever you are. Sometimes it feels like being in a boat rocking in rough waters, or a plane in heavy turbulence. What is disconcerting is that what should be stationary, is moving.
All earthquakes are different. Some start out fierce and end quickly. Some take their time and rumble steadily, and then stop.
Tuesday night at 8:00pm we had a slow, steady shaker, 5.6 on the richter scale. Almost 12 hours earlier, I was sitting in the same chair in my living room, and something made me look up at the wall sconce. I thought to myself, "I wonder if we are going to have an earthquake today?" I don't know what made me think that - I do not usually have premonitions. I wonder if it was something I felt inside, a very early internal warning?
I do not feel scared during earthquakes. I go into a slightly anxious auto-pilot - my body tells me to move. So I find the nearest doorway and go there (where it is structurally safest), and then I look to make sure that nothing is falling off of the walls or shelves. I scan the rooms to make sure the animals are ok. I see Charles moving, standing in front of a valuable sculpture or near the wine glasses that I haven't put away.
Our house has stood since the early 1940's, and was retrofit by the previous owner. Earthquakes are not new to this house. And as a Bay Area resident for almost 10 years, they are not new to me either. We ride it out together, respectfully allowing the earth to shift and settle itself, reminding us of its strength and foundation.
