Japan

I was working on my blog post last night, and the topic was Death and what it's all about. I had the news going at the same time...and the breaking news was about Japan's 8.9 earthquake and tsunami. The terrible devastation that we all witnessed on the news rendered my post insignificant and I have set it aside for the time being out of respect for the events still unfolding.

It hits home even harder because I live in that Ring of Fire, in Southern California. My parents and their oldest (an infant) lived through the Tehachapi quake in 1951 - in Taft, right by the epicenter - and my mother's stories are vivid. That oldest, my older sister, lived through the Loma Prieta quake in October 1989 (better known as the Bay Area quake). Her stories are equally vivid. Earthquakes are a fact of life here. We shake, rattle and roll along with the quakes. The east-facing doors in my apartments will not stay open without a doorstop and my bedroom floor upstairs is disconcertingly uneven, due to the apartment's structure resettling from quakes.

I can tell you one thing. When an earthquake strikes, anything above magnitude 5.0, 5.5, you are literally in the moment and the moment seems to last for an eternity, even though it may be 30, 45 seconds, one minute. And when it stops, it feels as if it is continuing and you don't quite realize it. It is always a peculiar sensation, no matter how many times one has experienced it. So for the 8.9 quake to last five solid minutes, that truly is an eternity, an unimaginable eternity.

I'm about 15 to 18 miles inland from the beaches, in a flood basin. Prado Dam is about 24 miles northeast and if it were to go, there would be six feet of water throughout the flood basin. We faced that about seven or eight years ago when the dam sprang a major leak. It's a well known fact that we're long overdue for the Big One and the smaller quakes relieve our fault lines of the tension building up to the potential Big One. I'm okay with that, believe me.

Why? Why do people live in risky areas? Well, why do people live in Tornado Alley? Or near volcanoes (whether active, dormant or extinct)? Or by the beach? In the mountains? Let's face it, our planet is a living, breathing organism and Nature is not going to cease for mere humans. Planet Earth will continue to shift the tectonic plates and scratch an itch here and there. Weather prediction and control? Still very much a developing science. I will allow that I think it is just beyond incredibly stupid when people build tunnels under water (such as BART or the Chunnel). And nuclear plants in earthquake zones? Suicidal. People become complacent, thinking it will never happen to them. Or they figure with fatalism that there's a bullet with their name on it, wrought by an earthquake, that they're not going to dodge. Meanwhile, they've got to live somewhere. Might as well be someplace nice and worth taking the risk.

(That movement, Zero Population Growth, is starting to look awfully good again. So are the annual Darwinist Awards. Mind you, I'm talking about Southern California.)

Can it happen here? Hell, yeah. Will it happen here? Oh, yes. When? We don't have the answer to that one, folks. But I can tell you, when the earth jiggles, and we feel it, our first thought - whether we admit it or not - invariably is, The Big One, is it the Big One? And when it turns out not to be the Big One, we shake it off and resume the daily routine. But it whispers at the very back of our minds, from the shadowy recesses...

Because Nature trumps us. Hands-down.

We Southern Californians would do well to keep that in mind.

For all the people and animals who have lost their lives in the Honshu earthquake and made the transition Home, I offer this prayer:

May the Grace and the Glory, the Mercy and the Compassion, and above all else, the Love of the Lady and the Lord surround you as you continue on your souls' journeys. So mote it be and blessed be.

And my heart and prayers go out to the survivors who must live through this awful nightmare for days, months and years to come.