Earthquakes past and present

The view of Dry Creek Valley from Sbragia Winery

As timing would have it, we had a gig in wine country on Sunday. It was in Sonoma County rather than Napa, but like most people living in the Bay Area, we'd felt the earthquake in the wee hours of the morning. Like most California natives, the feel of an earthquake is familiar. The first hints of movement, the approaching tremors and then the peak of the shake. Kind of like thunder in the earth. This one felt long and steady (I think I woke up after the sharpest of the jolts), not enough to get out of bed but enough for us to know it wasn't an inconsequential tremor. It felt to me that we were at or very near the center of something moderate...or somewhere not too far away, some peoples lives were changing considerably...which they were. My best wishes are going out to those in  Napa who are reeling from the 6.1 quake's aftermath, and whose nerves are likely rattling from the 80+ aftershocks.

While I don't think of moving from California when an earthquake reminds me how fragile things really are, something primal in the survival department does get rattled. The earth moving is an awesome event, period. And I have instant recall of the two other largish and large earthquakes I've been in (5.9 in 1979 and 7.1 in 1989, both while I was living in Santa Cruz), down to what I did (ducking and covering under a dining room table and doorway respectively), and who I was with, and also that knowing that 'this one' is a 'big one.'
I had the brief  thought on Sunday that maybe we shouldn't go the gig in Geyserville because of the quake. There were bridges to cross, after all, and we'd be heading closer to the epicenter than we were here in Alameda. Then I realized how silly that was—that while we could control how close we were to a fault line, there are infinite risks inherent to living anywhere, but it's the living, as risky a proposition as that can be, that's the point. And so we made the drive, and enjoyed playing atop a beautiful hill with a bucolic view of Dry Creek Valley.

earthquakes and the awesome present

It's Halloween...I'm being myself!
Consistent with my rebooted yoga practice, I've been teaching a bit of basic asana to interested folks. Last night, I was about to give some private instruction when the apartment started shaking. I knew right away what it was so we both headed for the doorway. But where is the safest place to seek shelter in a third-floor apartment in the heart of San Francisco? Away from glass was the easy part but the doorway seemed flimsy as the building creaked and shook, and I realized I might want to make a plan for future reference. Nonetheless, the immediate ticket back to calm soon after the 5.6 tremor stilled proved to be getting back to practice.
"...when events are felt strongly, all the senses are brought into focus: sound, sight, feeling, taste. ...At that moment the present time is felt acutely—the awesome present. These events take over all our sense and compress time." —artist Bill Jensen in Bomb (Spring 2007)