She’s on her second sleep now, having been pulled out of her bed at 4:37 and carried wrapped in a blanket down two flights of stairs near the door in case a quick exit was required. The shaking finally stopped – reports in our area say that it lasted for 90 seconds, a 5.4, maybe a 5.2. It’s hard to know exactly how long it lasted because our brains moved into some other processing mode, transitioning from deep early morning sleep to awareness to realization to action. We sat perched by the front door and scanned the TV and the radio simultaneously for confirmation of our fears. Fifteen minutes went by with nothing. Andy Griffith ribbed Aunt Bea a bit, COPS took down some shirtless guy in a trailer park, the BBC worried itself with Baghdad rattles of the much more acute man-made kind. We tucked her back in and she fell immediately quiet and then a few moments later we finally confirmed on the radio that we had been right. I was glad we were not driving, were not at work and school and separated, were not on or under bridges shaking with the force, just glad we were all home and all together. But I’m still a bit rattled this morning, as I’m sure a lot of people are. And that third floor room that houses all that we hold dear in this world can be reached in a split second when we need to. But it’s still an awfully long way from the ground, even shaky ground.
