Around 7:15 this evening I felt my first ever earthquake (that blue square on the map). I was in Concord, CA sitting on a couch in the home of an elderly lady, Margie, and visiting with another gal, Jen, from church. Jen is also new to living in earthquake zone.
It felt like someone shoved the whole house forward. My body wanted to brace for a fall that never came. Margie didn't skip a beat, she continued with her story as if nothing happened. She has lived in California her whole life. Jen and I looked at each other and her wide eyes matched the hair standing on the back of my neck. The shiny red and gold balls swinging on the branches of the Christmas tree confirmed that we did, indeed, feel an earthquake.
My arms felt so empty not having my son to hold and protect, even though there was essentially nothing to protect him from. The 'what if it's only a preshock' wouldn't budge from my mind for a good 3 minutes. Images of 1906 flip through my head.
I call Mike and Zane, Margie waits patiently to finish her story. She smiles as I buzz about the movement. Mike barely felt it and said "oh is that what that was?"
I almost forgot to sit down and write about it once I got home. I guess my anxiety-laden brain has come a long way. In June, July, and August I laid awake at night for hours waiting for this moment to happen. Waiting to feel the ride of being inside an etch-a-sketch that only gets halfway shaken. I kept waiting to be shifted back to where I began when first sat on the couch, surely I had been moved at least 9 inches forward. Margie assumed it was roughly a 4.0 magnitude.
Turns out she wasn't that far off. It was Berkeley that had the earthquake tonight at a 3.7 magnitude at 7:12pm.
Mr. Hayward fault, go back to sleep for a very, very long time.
