David! David, wake up! Come on, mijo, we're having an earthquake and you need to get out of bed.
My father rousts me from my upper bunk, the world wobbling on its axis, swaying back and forth like a ship clinging to its anchor in a storm. My older brother and I stagger sleepily to the hall and huddle in a door frame, terror and excitement battle for control of our senses as books fall from bookshelves all over the house. And then, as suddenly as it began, it is over.
California is for earthquakes, and this is one of my earliest memories of them. I remember it vividly. Perhaps it's because I was so young. Perhaps it's because, after a lifetime of shakes and tremors, earthquakes have lost their shock value, individual instances blending together into one continuous rolling motion.
Others are not so blase. Not everyone grew up with potentially catastrophic events as an everyday possibility. For them, every tremor reminds them they have moved to a place that might one day slip its moorings and drift into the ocean. Here in the San Fernando Valley, the memory of the Northridge Quake is still fresh. People lost everything, their lives slid from their foundations and collapsed into chaos. "Minor" quakes are major reminders of previous pain.
I skipped the garden this morning. I got up late, rushed through the early morning routine, and skipped coffee. But as I let the dogs out and looked around from the back porch, I couldn't help but notice an unnerving calm in the air. Leaves stood still and quiet beneath an orange overcast sky. Later, standing outside the office, feeling the heaviness of the air, it hit me.
This is earthquake weather.
How to explain that concept to the uninitiated? I'm not sure how, but over the years quake veterans develop a sixth sense for these things. For others it may be different, but for me it usually has to do with what I perceive to be unnatural stillness, lethargy almost, and a redness to the sky. There is a taught tension to the atmosphere that strains at the earth. And then the ground moves.
Sometimes a shudder. Sometimes a shake. Sometimes a prolonged rolling motion so gentle it takes a moment to realize it's happening.
Something's coming.
Somehow, I know it isn't bad. I, too, am calm. This is not The Big One, but a more gentle reminder to not get too comfortable where I am. After weeks of dozing, boredom even, it's time to get out of bed and brace myself. Things are moving. Things are shaking.
I am ready.
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