Mamá was in the
hospital when the earthquake hit.
My
sister and I were in the car, in a parking lot. She felt it first,
telling me to “knock it off.”
“Knock what
off?” I said.
“Stop moving the
car.”
“I’m not moving
the car,” and that’s when I felt it.
A tug to the right, a tug to the left—something pulling at the rubber
tires under us.
“Look,” I
pointed at the back window, to the strip mall, and the lamp store behind
us. All the ceiling lamps inside
the store as far as I could see, and those hanging from the outside awning were
swaying—really swaying, while people were running outside.
“Earthquake!” we
both said. There was nothing we
could do but watch people gather outside the stores.
“Is everyone
okay?” yelled a man holding a broom outside the lamp store.
No lamps had
fallen, no crashing of glass.
When we got up
to the eighth floor of the hospital and to mamá, she was relieved to see
us. “Are you okay?” were her first
words.
“We’re fine,” I
said.
She told us that
many people were screaming, beds rolling everywhere. Her bed had ended up on the other side of the room, next to
the large bay windows. What if they
had cracked or fallen out? What
if? What if?
But nothing had
happened except for moving beds, flower vases tipped over. The nurses were still scurrying around
with mops or garbage bags.
 |
| Glass enclosed hospital room |
A few days
later, we visited mamá again and a woman in a nearby room had been screaming,
sometimes moaning. I had never
heard any adult in such distress.
It shook me.
“What’s the
matter with her?” I asked.
“She’s dying.”
Mamá answered.
“Is that what
people do when they are dying?”
“Some
people. Not all people. It depends.”
Mamá then
explained to me about all the people she had been with who had died. And there had been many. She was there
when her older brother died, had held her father when he died, had witnessed
other family and friends dying.
She was not hesitant to tell me every detail about dying that she
knew—as if giving me instructions.
“It’s a
shifting,” she said.
“Movement. And it can be
painful or not.”
I’m thinking
about these earthquake memories tonight while inside a “viewing blind” in
Kearney, Nebraska, watching thousands of Sandhill Cranes leave their day’s
feasting on farm fields to congregate in the middle of the Platte River. Tonight they are flying in by the
thousands, hovering over their intended landing space on the river’s sandy
mounds, descending like parachutes, their long lanky legs hanging like two
twigs. It’s not like any other
bird landing. And when they do
land, they strut, or flap their wings, they lift themselves a bit, they dance
with each other. However, they are
ever on the alert for predators.
 |
| Platte River at sunset with sandhill cranes |
Our guide has
just told us that the night before, eagles had interrupted the cranes’
roosting. Thousands flew up to
escape the eagles, except one—its injured wing preventing it from flying away. The next day, the guides found the
crane carcass on the river.
Ever on the
alert. When I left Los Angeles and
moved to Nebraska, I realized I had been “ever on the alert” for
earthquakes. I had cultivated a
second sense, so when an earthquake began, I’d know to go under a desk, stay
away from windows, or stand under a doorway. A geologist had taught me to begin counting as soon as an
earthquake hits. He taught me to
tabulate the number in order to figure out the epicenter and magnitude. It never worked for me, but it was a
distraction, and seemed to calm me during an earthquake. Yet, along with the fear of the earth
so strangely moving beneath me, I would also feel a fascinating curiosity, and
a yearning to move with it, like a dance.
Now I live where
severe thunderstorms occur, high winds hit, and tornadoes are not unusual. Some people here have told me they
would not like living in Los Angeles--on shifting tectonic plates. There is no warning when an earthquake
may occur. “At least you can find
out if a tornado might be coming your way,” they tell me. Yet, I’ve learned that even with a
warning, one may not have much time.
You may be hurt or incapacitated in some way, preventing you from
getting away or finding a safe space.
 |
| Sandhill Cranes swirling above The Platte River |
Tonight
something scared the cranes. Maybe
it was an eagle. Maybe it was a
coyote or perhaps they didn’t know what to make of the four frolicking deer
near the edge of the Platte River.
Thousands swarmed up into the sky, their alarm calls like rattling
bugles.
So much beauty
in this panic. And then, after a
few minutes of circling above us, the swirling masses
parachuted slowly down again, onto the sandy, shifting river.
 |
| Sandhill crane panic swarm |
 |
| Sandhill cranes |
