In less than a month, we’ve felt three strong earthquakes down here in Chile (a 5.3, 7.2, and 6.5, respectively). We’ve felt them ever since we arrived. I realize these temblors/aftershocks pale in comparison to the tragic 8.8 terremoto that struck Chile on February 27, 2010 as well as the devastating Loma Prieta earthquake I felt in California in 1989.

 

I was nine years old and finishing up a tennis lesson when one hundred or so stray tennis balls started dancing around the court like popcorn. When you’re nine and you’re around a lot of other nine-year-olds, something like an earthquake (and popcorning tennis balls) is exciting. I remember making “Richter Scale” guesses with the boys, although I honestly had no idea what a Richter Scale even was. (It turned out to be a 6.9.) It wasn’t until my mom picked me up and we got Kentucky Fried Chicken and checked in on my grandmother and watched the news and saw the collapsed section of the Bay Bridge that I understood the true magnitude. (It was years before I crossed that bridge without praying, and over 20 years later a new one is finally being built.)

See, I’m from California. Earthquakes are the natural disasters I’m conditioned to–or at least taught to prepare for starting from a young age: duck and cover, secure a meeting place, know where the first aid kit is, store nonperishable food and keep plenty of water on hand, not to mention blankets and batteries and a radio. Once you live through one, you feel a little more confident in the face of them. Ryan’s a California native, too. He was also nine at the time and high in the stands at the infamous Oakland A’s v. San Francisco Giants World Series at the time. He remembers it well. He’s conditioned, too.

But last night, when the living room started rattling and picture frames fell over and that unmistakable rumble only started picking up energy, it was all I could do to make it to the doorway and stand there calling out my husband’s name into the dark apartment. He was asleep and, ever cool in a crisis, managed to go back to sleep pretty soon thereafter. It was yours truly who was more wide-eyed than ever, watching the news (in Spanish, obviously) trying to decipher what had happened, where it had originated, and where it would land on the Richter Scale. For whatever reason, after feeling my fair share in California and at least a half dozen of these Chilean tremblers over the past year, this one scared me because it was the closest to the capital and it seemed to go on without end. Thanks to Santiago’s impressive infrastructure, no damage or injuries were reported. I do truly feel safe here, even though we are situated in the Pacific Ring of Fire (as is California).

The whole earth, as it does, has been shaking. We’ve had recent earthquakes in Mexico, Indonesia, and Papua New Guinea. Before the tsunami warnings have been called off and while the damage is still being assessed, they are reminiscent of disasters and devastation in Haiti and Japan and Chile and Thailand. Thankfully, these recent quakes have not been so perilous.

But a jolt is still a jolt. It shakes free whatever it is you’re worrying about, whatever it is keeping you up at 1AM, whatever it was Jack Bauer was saving the world from on the episode of “24” I happened to be watching at the time. It made me crawl back in bed with my husband for a minute, just so I could be assured of his presence and be grateful and know that we were okay.

After a few mild aftershocks, when the ground settled down again, the picture frames were turned upright, and the news had reassured, there was nothing left to do but calm the shaking in my own system, take the deep breaths that restore order, and (after making sure Jack Bauer did, indeed, save the world again), try to get some sleep… and pretend that I’m not in fact waiting for the next one.