An earthquake just hit. 5.9 in Smith Valley or south of Markleeville, the USGS is still deciding. I didn’t even feel it, but the girls did, and the phone immediately started ringing off the hook. It’s a funny thing how life can just change on a dime – one minute you’re doing the laying out for the Friday the paper and the very next all anyone can do is marvel over the dishes clanging and the parking lot rolling.
One of my sisters is a geology buff and she’s sending minute-by-minute updates of the aftershocks. People keep texting and posting and everything that was happening today before 3:49 p.m. has been put on the backburner.
There are so many other things in life like that. This is just a little thing, wonderous, but fairly far away. As long as those aftershocks stay southwest, we are out of the reach of danger, but think of the big ones – you meet someone out of the blue and from that moment on nothing is ever the same. You move, you start a new job, someone leaves suddenly, or they die. Bam. Life is suddenly different.
There are gradual changes too, pregnancy, raising kids, weeding the yard – All. Summer. Long. You could start a newspaper on a lark and wonder if it will work and two-and-a-half years later you don’t remember every doing anything else.
Life is so funny. It’s really amazing the range of experiences we get. As Shirley Walker always used to tell me, “It’s a great ride, Rachel, if you don’t weaken.”
Rest assured, as the world rocks on, we will be right here…
…keeping you Posted,
Rach
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