4.2 Earthquake, July 2007

In Piedmont, 2 blocks from where I live. When the earth shakes, everybody becomes a pagan and looks down to god and not up to heaven. For a few seconds we all pray to be spared. There is such a power behind every little move of the earth that we, as humans, dwarf in the face of the almighty planet.

My first Earthquake happened in Hollywood where I lived in the early seventies. For a Hungarian ex-New Yorker, it was GOD talking. I had never felt like that before - the earth moved underneath my feet. I fell to my knees and kissed the dirt.

Earthquakes make the tires on the road sound like they have a flat. Booboom-Boom. The walls shake as if wrestled by a giant. It’s nothing personal. The earthquake is a “happening” and if you are alive when she is doing it, pray to the planet.

Most the earthquakes I have felt since I lived here in California have been kind, even polite. Nobody dies unless men built things with shabby planning, (like a freeway collapse) or got greedy and didn’t do a good job –slovenly, lazy. Everybody who felt the planet’s power knew the power was below our feet. We are but small bugs on her neck. This earthquake felt more like she snapped her bra straps. Shake!

One good jolt. Bam! Nothing broke, and nobody had to die. She needed this adjustment. May be she is saving us for her amusement. She watches us like we watch warts. What strange thing I grew! She must think.

We are fools. We worry about men attacking each other, making big explosions, blowing up cars and each other, terrorists. Big news. We forget that we are here for a short time only. We are given this heavenly place, this blue planet, and yes, sometimes she needs to adjust her fault lines. But when she moves we are reminded that we don’t count. There is no heaven nor hell, it’s all here on the planet, and we get to imagine which we’d rather like to live in. We exist at her pleasure. If the planet has to really, really shake, we’d be dust. Again.