One of the really, really cool things about my job is that I get exposed to a lot of really wonderful books, books that I would have otherwise never known about. Shortly after moving here, two years ago, I came across a truly compelling title: I Feel Earthquakes More Often than They Happen: Coming to California in the Age of Schwarzenegger. It was a brand-new title, and the parallel to my own life gave me pause. I checked it out, but never finished reading it. But after this week, I think I'd better.
Before I moved, I heard somewhere, from someone, that they had heard that earthquakes happen all the time, every day, all over California, but that most of them were too small to notice. And damned if that person--whoever the hell it was--wasn't right. I've been here two years, and have only felt three:
1. A 3.8, back when I first moved to California. I called up LoPrete, terrified and crying, convinced that it was time to move back home to Indiana after a whole whopping three weeks. That earthquake rolled from one end of my apartment to the other, and the cats were extremely unimpressed.
2. The next one that I felt didn't happen until a year-and-a-half later, and I was asleep on a friend's couch. At 4 AM, something woke me up; I wasn't even certain it was an earthquake until I checked teh interweb two hours later. That one was a small one, and I only felt it because it was close by.
3. Tuesday. Ah, yes. Tuesday. There was no missing, no mistaking that one. I was on the reference desk, on the phone with a very high-maintenance, chatty patron, and I felt a tiny tremble. My chair bounced just a little--but I suspected I was just imagining it. Then my chair bounced again, just the tiniest bit, and I knew we had had a little tremblor. I resolved to hop on the USGS when I got off the phone with Miss Chatty McChatterson--and then, two seconds later, the floor began to bounce. Overhead, I heard the ceiling shifting, around us, I heard the building groan a little. You know what an earthquake feels like? It feels like your inner balance is off, out of whack, that you've got a little bit of vertigo, that you are on a rolling ship. For a tiny sliver of time, solid ground becomes a myth, something you foolishly took for granted all those years. For a tiny sliver of time, you look at those solid walls and think, Wow, those things are really flimsy. They are bouncing around as much as I am right now.
All this time, up until now, I haven't felt earthquakes more often than they happen. Like most others here, I don't notice, just like the folks said before I moved out here. There have been a few minor earthquakes that I somehow just completely missed. But not now. Since Tuesday, I have been feeling earthquakes more often than they happen. Maybe that actually IS vertigo, but every time I even think I sense an unsteadiness, fear and apprehension begin to build. I become very conscious of the ground, and how solid it is--and for how much longer it will stay that way. I've felt tremblors, and they haven't actually happened. They are phantoms of my imagination, mental conjurings that maybe are good for me, a way to learn to prepare. Because like almost every californicated person, I've been lulled into that sense of security that is so completely stupid.
I'm pretty sure that my California friends--Jeana, Katie, Nando--are reading this right now, chuckling. Yesyes, I am still green, a big wuss. I've handled Los Angeles traffic, I've developed a love for avacodos, I am even contemplating pedicures--but I guess the Californication process is not yet complete. I am not sure that earthquakes are something I'll ever really acclimate to. I'm not sure I can really get acclimated to buildings that bounce.
