Saturday August 27, 2011

It’s the week of natural disasters that actually haven’t been disasters. At least so far. Tuesday my mom and my sister, Beth, and Christy’s boys were here for the day. The four oldest boys were outside playing while the two little ones and both girls were inside. We were in the middle of a pretty involving discussion when suddenly there was a strange rumbling sound. It wasn’t that loud, yet very commanding. And then the house began to shake. At first I ignored it thinking it was the children playing rambunctiously on the deck. Just as quickly I remembered there were no children on the deck. We all went silent. I looked at Beth and said, “What is that?” And in the same somewhat dazed expression she said, “That’s an earthquake.”
 


Immediately I sprang into action and everyone else followed. “Head for the basement,” I yelled, grabbing Ian on my way out. Only later did I realize I’d done exactly the wrong thing (Never be on the stairs or in a doorway and go out, not down). Mom and Beth collected children and followed suit. About the time I got downstairs I saw the open door and realized I didn’t want a house on top of me. Knees and ground still shaking, I moved through the door. The boys were out by the dog house digging up tree roots because Zachary had convinced them that it was actually a fossil … a dinosaur knee to be exact.

“Adam, are you guys safe?”

He paused a moment and said, “I think so.”

And then the shaking stopped. At least in the ground. I’m not really sure when it stopped in my knees.

We sat outside for the next ten minutes, barely daring to go back into the house. The sky was so blue, the air so clear, a few flimsy clouds hanging in the sky …. Had I been alone I would have wondered if I dreamed it all up. “So if we’d be phlegmatics, we’d probably all still be sitting in the house saying, ‘oh, yeah, that must have been an earthquake’,” I told Mom and Beth as we got ready to go back inside. I was wrong. Facebook exploded with earthquake related statuses and both there and the next day at school in person, everyone seemed to need to share exactly where they were, what shook, what they felt and didn’t feel. It must have been a big deal for more than just the dramatic ones of us.

My favorite facebook status was one David’s aunt borrowed from a friend. “The Weather Channel says yesterday’s east coast earthquake was caused by an unknown faultline running under D.C. and through Virginia. It is now being called Obama’s Fault, though Obama will say it’s really Bush’s Fault. Another theory is that it was the founding fathers rolling over in their graves, but I believe what we all thought was an earthquake was actually the effects of a 14.6 trillion dollar check bouncing in Washington.”

This one from my cousin, Craig, (also borrowed from a friend) was a close runner-up: “As all of DC leaves work at the same time, the United States experiences a brief economic recovery.”

This article was a fun read.

They rated the quake at 5.8. That evening David went to visit our former neighbor, Mac. His story breaks my heart. It’s taking more heart-wrenching turns and I wish so much he were still our neighbor so we could stop in more often and easily. I gave the boys an early supper and headed for town because the school shoes I ordered for Adam didn’t fit. On the way home we were verbally processing the quake. I asked him how it was outside.



“Well, actually I thought it was a sami (he always pronounces it sami instead of semi) and Daddy’s truck coming in the lane at the same time. You know how the ground feels when a big sami goes past? Well, it felt like that and I heard Daddy’s ladder racks so I thought it was Daddy’s truck and a sami. But then I thought Daddy had pulled up to that place where he stops and backs down but the noise kept on going and then Lawrence said, “What was that?”



I asked him if he remembers what an earthquake is from his Big Book of Knowledge and he said yes. We talked about the quakes in Haiti and Japan and how the damage is so much less likely to be extensive here than Haiti because of the way our structures are built. We talked about the Richter scale. And then because I thought everything was over, I told him about the minor damage in Louisa and how some ceiling tiles fell and a few other minor damage issues.

It was time for bed as soon as we got home and he was supposed to be pulling on his pajamas when he wandered into my bedroom and said, “That story kind of scared me.”

I’d kind of forgotten about earthquakes by then.

“What story?”

“Well, no, not the telling of the story.”

“But what story?”

“Well, no, it didn’t affect me personally. Just those ceiling tiles.”

Oh, pumpkin. Where do you cook up that wording? Seriously. But boy, did I regret having told him all of that at 7:30 the night before school started for the year. We talked about aftershocks and how they are usually less than the initial quake. And if there isn’t structural damage in the initial one, then we probably don’t have to fear the aftershocks. But I also told him that I can’t promise him that, because it’s God who is in control of the world. Not us. And we really will never know what is going to happen next. He seemed to understand. And to feel less afraid. So he went back to the bathroom to brush his teeth and I was changing Liam into his pajamas. And just like that, the rumble started and once again the whole house jittered. 4.2 I saw the look in his eyes when I called him to come to the bedroom as soon as it started. I saw him come bravely back when it stopped and he finished brushing his teeth. I saw the little muscles in his arms as he pulled the covers up to his chin and I knew he was anything but relaxed. “Adam, would you like if I would stay here in bed with you until you fall asleep after we pray?” The seven year old who hates being crowded in bed and often says, “Mommy, GO,” when I lie between them uttered one word. “Yeah.”



That night I woke minutes before another aftershock. 4.5 I know all the things I told Adam, but when the boys are more than ten feet away from me, I cannot think of earthquakes as cool. Can you imagine the absolute horror of being trapped in a building and not be able to reach your child? I am not afraid of death so much as I am afraid of suffering before it happens. Funny how things change when you become a parent.

Today we are gearing up for Hurricane Irene. Apparently it’s not supposed to be a big deal after all and David and I had a bit of back and forth this morning about how much prep we should do. I kept remembering the hurricane in ’03 and the way our place way back in the mountains got trashed outside and we were left without power for almost a week. He kept saying, “Oh, it’s not going to be that bad. It’s moving up the coast.” I told him I’m the girl version of a boy scout. Always be prepared, you know. Seeing that I was roughly eight weeks pregnant and horribly nauseous the other time, my memory could be a bit skewed.

So we compromised. The patio chairs went in the basement. The table stayed on the deck. The hanging baskets went in the barn. The pots on the front porch stayed since they are protected by the house. The torches stayed in the ground. Inside the house, there are two bathtubs filled with water so we can flush toilets if the power goes out. The leftover pizza pieces are out of the freezer and thawing on the counter. I don’t mind eating cold pizza if the microwave goes, but it won’t do us any good frozen. The five gallon igloo is filled with drinking water. David braved the media-panicked masses at Whole Foods yesterday to stock up on ham and hot dogs for Liam in case we can’t cook. I’m thinking that in spite of all the talk about the hurricane hurting the economy, things will actually get a boost from all the people going out and buying big storage bins and things to fill them for their survival kits. Seriously, does no one stock toilet paper and band-aids and food enough to get them through a few days without a mass exodus to every grocery store in town? Shop your cupboards, people.



I love storms like this. Probably mostly because I love wind. I remember the wind in South Carolina and how I would sway into it, trying to stay upright. I remember wishing it would pick me up off the ground just a little. When Mom and Dad built in Virginia, they bought a few acres on top of a hill. There is always wind there. When others get a breeze, they have gusts. Sometimes when it goes on and on it gets wearying. But most of the time, wind is energizing. So this morning, sitting on the deck to finish our coffee before the clean up began, I fell in love all over again with storms and wind. Adam finally had enough wind to fly kite.

Oh, and just for the record, we won’t say who won the morning’s hash about being prepared, but the biggest potted plant I have on the front porch got blown off around 2:00. The potted plants are all inside now. Just sayin’. Then again, since David isn’t here to defend himself I’ll just tell you what he would say, “The night isn’t over yet.” And knowing how things usually go, the power won’t go off and he’ll get the last laugh. Except that we always both end up laughing. There’s only the difference in who starts first.

I hope we get lots more wind. I kind of hope the power goes off … sometime this evening after we eat our microwaved pizza. I hope the rain pounds the windows in that can’t-see-out kind of hurricane way. I hope the trees whip in the wind. I hope we get to hear the wind howling instead of whistling. But I also hope everyone stays safe.

If I wouldn’t have gotten married, I think I’d like to be a storm chaser. Funny how things change when you become a parent.

Sometimes I wonder where the quake in my heart would measure on the Richter scale. And sometimes I wonder how much of the magnitude is actually earthquake and how much of it is rubble from too much sand in my concrete like the buildings in Haiti. Or the result of media driven hype that may contain elements of truth, but is mostly not.

I love weather storms …. As long as they aren’t too dangerous and won’t hurt our children. But life storms? I’d be fine with sunshine and gentle rains.

Life isn’t like that, though. There are storms. There are periods of barrenness. There is weariness. No, make that exhaustion.

This summer it has sometimes felt as though I journeyed through a wilderness while already in the desert inside my heart. I wish I could say I see an oasis ahead, but I don’t. Maybe something more like a raging ocean. But as Ann Voscamp said, “…Catastrophizing is how we make our own soul-cages.”

Whatever battle you are fighting today, here is my wish for all of us:

Flexibility like the trees that bend and sway in the wind.

Freedom like the kites that use the winds to lift them up.

But most of all, that we would see Jesus.
Who He really is.
Who we truly are in Him.

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