A Gentle Earthquake

It was a long awaited weekend. Sometimes I long for the simplicity of an early morning on a day off, and think to myself that for this moment, I have arrived. Nothing is drawing me out of bed. The family I dream of growing is not yet here. I am laying in bed under warm sheets, moving my legs across soft flannel comfortably weighted under down while the rain gently falls and nourishes the Earth within and around us. No longing, no anxiety or urgency, just pleasure from what is. Bed offers me a momentary sabbath.

After a night of swirling dreams, I feel movement and open my eyes to notice a gentle swaying— it is an earthquake. With nothing but neatly folded cloths on our highest shelves, our bedroom softly rocked with the shifting tectonic plates. Just a few moments of penetrating vulnerability ran through my mind before I realized that it was a small earthquake. Settling into the moment, I felt strangely comforted. I was tucked in like a child being rocked to sleep by their gentle and generous caretaker.

We often think of earthquakes as massive moments of destruction to be feared, and the most memorable ones are usually just that. The last one that occurred over 40 years ago where I live shattered the walls of small businesses and revealed the timecapsules contained within them— old black and white photographs of children who have grown and died and who we no longer know the names of. In that earthquake, many people passed under the sudden and intense circumstances, under the pressure of crumbling rubble. Countless folks were tensely trapped on a cracking bridge that held their vulnerable bodies above a vast inlet. A terrifying day for colonial projects, where the illusory control that some humans exert over the Earth is revealed for the arrogant and flawed project that it is.

This particular earthquake from years ago also caused the peaks of nearby mountains to rise by 3 feet— a moment in geologic time, decolonial time, that knocks out any venture that is not humbly in its place, as well as many that are.

I inhabit the edge of land where coastal redwoods meet the sea. This land has many nearby faults and numerous small metal signs posted to indicate which way to rush in a tsunami, most likely initiated and charged following an earthquake of sudden intensity.

But this morning, as a I stretched out beside my husband who was quietly breathing, exuding a comforting warmth from his body, no harm was done. No stress, no spills, no grief, no loss— just a simple sway with all moving in momentary harmony. So slight, it might have even been unfelt by many sleeping nearby.

I am reminded that the Earth is more benevolent than viscous, as there are more days of stillness and gentle sway than those that erupt. Without knowing the magnitude of what is to come, I write this down to remember the feeling of this precise moment, this day of the gentle earthquake.