DISASTER!

Well, not really. I’m sure you’ve all heard by now that two days ago, the City of Los Angeles was shaken to the core. By an EARTHQUAKE. Not the big one, but it sure as hell wasn’t little either. Earthquakes are an interesting phenomenon. We got hit by a 5.4 that lasted just over 20 seconds. Twenty seconds is a looooooong time for an earthquake. So long, that while you are watching everything around you shake like it was a boat on choppy water, you have time to think “this is still happening.” Then you watch people go crazy, screaming and think again “this is still happening!”

Being from the East Coast, I have heard instructions on what to do in an earthquake a couple of times, and filed them away in my head. Interestingly, I remembered that the best place to be was either in a door frame or under a table. Unfortunately, they were all taken. I got to experience this in the open, where stuff could easily fall onto my head. My adrenaline began to pump, and my fear went away. I looked out into the street to see cars moving up and down, shaking side to side and could feel the ground rolling beneath my feet. I was reminded of being on a carnival ride like the shake shack. Oddly, the emotion I felt was a strong connection to the planet. It was as if I had never really felt the ground beneath my feet before then. And this piece of rock that I am standing on is hurtling through space, at warp speed. I felt infinitely connected to everything that is.

Then I thought about how this rock we live on is all we got. It carries us around the sun to keep us warm and provides us with vegetation to sustain life. We can either take care of it now or we will be forced to look for another way of living.




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