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November 30, 2018: My Own Private Epicenter

The question that people will be asked for some time will be, what were you doing during the November 30th earthquake? I will say, sheepishly, that though it was 8:30 a.m., I was still in bed, just lying there, planning my day. Then boom rattle rattle rattle rattle. I remained in bed as did Pete and heard books, notebooks, and other things come toppling off shelves in the room adjacent to our bedroom.

It seemed like the jolts went on forever, but it was probably only for a minute or less. Then there were the aftershocks. It occurred to me that last night Pete had read a chapter from what we call the earthquake book(The Days the Trees Bent to the Ground) – personal accounts of what occurred during the 1964 disaster.

Alys's work area was a mess after the earthquake
Alys's work area was a mess after the earthquake


And, he also read another chapter the night before a previous earthquake. I thought, while I like this book, enough is enough.

We knew this wasn’t the big one, but it was big enough. We got up and assessed the damage. Ryder was at the base of the stairs, shaking. She either fell down or found herself unable to move.

My books and whatnot were on the floor, piled three deep. Downstairs, the medicinals had fallen into the sink. The freezer door popped open and the partial contents were on the floor. Spice jars flew off the rack, there was glass everywhere. The paintings and other art in the living room was askew; one painting, above the far door, was on the floor.

I put on coat, hat, boots, and went outside. The wood in the outer stack on the right hand side of the woodshed was tipped but had not fallen. The outside world was pretty much the same. The goats were on the hill behind their shed, wide eyed. The chickens (in their roost) were fairly calm. The horses were wanting their morning feed. Tyra, the drama queen, she was wide eyed. Some books came off the shelves in my cabin, but not many.

I came back inside after tending to the horses and went back upstairs. It was then that the full magnitude of what had happened here hit me. My intellectual hub was (to put it mildly) a mess. I had to begin the clean up effort by putting things away that were on the edges. It was a full morning’s work. Meanwhile, Pete was happily listening to people calling in to KFQD telling of what they’d noted. The International Cemetery was okay, and the Pot Shop on Tudor Road was open. Schools were closed. Some roads were wiped out.

As I cleaned up, I realized that my world is fairly insular and that my intellectual hub is my epicenter. I commute to and from it every day, several times a day in fact. Now I’m concerned that perhaps we’ll have another quake and that everything will go flying again. Then it will be déjà vu all over again.

Quakes lend themselves to post traumatic stress disorder. I have post traumatic intellectual hub disorder. Enough is enough. I am just going to have to cut the tape.

Next: 335. 12/1/18: Textbook

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