the Earthquake

I was not quite ten weeks pregnant when the 9.0 magnitude earthquake struck off the coast of the Tohoku region of Japan. Although Geordie and I made it through without any injuries or damage, it changed our lives. For today's Nanowrimo writing session, I spent a good chunk of it writing down my memory of that day. Here's an excerpt about the exact moment the earthquake hit, just those first few minutes as it happened and before I knew the full extent of the damage.


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March 11.

A Friday. A good day, then, because Geordie would be coming home. He’d meet me as I was finishing work, and we’d probably have dinner together in Loc City. Ramen, maybe. Then home to relax a bit together and to talk about the week. Those were all the plans we had made.

My shift started at five, though I usually went in early, around four. I did my hair in the morning but would not bother with getting fully dressed until three or so. A little after one, I sat down to the computer to write an email to my brother. I had been putting it off, as I often do; I am not the best of penpals. As I wrote, the apartment began to shake – another earthquake, a minor occurrence in Japan, for the most part. It gave me something to share with Ryan, and I added a sentence about it to his email.

The ‘quake started small. It felt like any other ordinary earthquake, one of dozens I’d felt since I arrived in Japan. After the few seconds of shaking, you go back to your usual business, as though nothing had really happened. One had woken me from my sleep on Wednesday morning, a little stronger than usual but nothing to get worked up about.

But the shaking did not stop. Instead, it intensified. That made me pause.

“Don’t panic,” I said aloud to myself. It would die down in a moment; it always did. I had never before been in an earthquake that had actually scared me.

Then a can of soup fell off the shelf above the kitchen sink, and I knew that this was not an ordinary earthquake, that it was something big, that I could not just sit there and wait for it to stop. Other things began to fall, including one of my rose pictures in the hall. I leaned over my computer and took down my diploma so it wouldn’t fall on the monitor.

I stood and pulled open the curtains of the sliding glass door at the front of the apartment. Across the narrow street was an empty house, and a couple hours earlier, two men had shown up to do some work on the interior. They ran out into the street as the shaking continued, holding their arms out to balance themselves. They spoke to each other. Often, I could hear when people on the street spoke, but because of the noise of the earthquake, I couldn’t hear the workmen. Some earthquakes are quiet, but with some come a rumbling, a deep and earthy sound like terrestrial thunder. This earthquake brought that sound.

Everything in the apartment moved, rattling about, a surprisingly tremendous noise. I suddenly did not what to stay in the apartment any longer.

I had on only a t-shirt and a pair of around-the-house boxer shorts. Grabbing the closest pair of pants to me, I pulled them on and put my cell phone and wallet into the pockets. I went into the hall and pulled on my heavy winter coat, leaning against the wall for support. Without bothering with socks, I slipped into my shoes and reached for the front door. My hands shook as I laid them on the door handle, and I thought that it was not just because of the earthquake’s shaking and the cold. After at least one minute, the ‘quake still had not abated. It felt like it would never end.

I can’t say how long exactly the earthquake lasted – somewhere between two and three minutes perhaps – but it felt like an eternity as I stood on the street and watched the houses shake on their foundations. The street moved – back and forth – and the electric lines overhead swayed and jumped, pulled taut before sagging and then going taut again. No tall buildings were in the area, so I didn’t worry about anything falling on me, but those wires made me uneasy. It was hard to stand up straight; I rocked from side to side as though I were on a boat.

Most of the buildings on my street were residences, but because it was the middle of a week day, not many people were at home. Only a few came out into the street, and all of them save for the workmen and myself were elderly. They clung to fences or carport supports and said very little. A crash came from the home across from my apartment, and one of the workmen ran back inside.

After a time, just as it felt like the earthquake would never end, the earth began to calm, and the shaking died away. It did not stop altogether, not immediately, but the buildings ceased their swaying, and it was possible to walk easily again. I stood in the street, pulling my coat around me, shivering with cold and fear. I did not know what to do.

My direct neighbor in the apartment home came outside and into the street, looking around amazed but unshaken. She said to me in Japanese, “Are you alright?”

“Yes, I’m okay,” I said. “Are you?”

“I’m alright.” She nodded her head and added, “That was very big, wasn’t it?”

“Yes.”

“Very big,” she repeated. “Probably a 5.”

It did not occur to me until later, after I knew the full magnitude of the earthquake, that I realized she meant that by the Japanese scale, which tops out at 7.

She waved at one of our neighbors down the street and called to them, leaving me alone. My thoughts flew to Geordie; I didn’t know where the earthquake had originated, but I was sure he had felt it to some degree. I pulled my cell phone out of my pocket and dialed his number. All lines were busy, as I had guessed they would be. That didn’t stop me from trying again.

I went back into the apartment to survey the damage. Only one plate in the sink had broken, probably from the soup can that had dropped on it. Books and other odds-and-ends had fallen off the coffee table and my tall bookshelf, but nothing had broken. My desk had been pulled away from the wall. The wall on the left side of the window over the couch had cracks at the window’s edges. Everything was in disarray, but that seemed to be the extent of the damage. The power was off.

The aftershocks came steadily, some of them stronger than other earthquakes I had felt in the previous two years. The sliding doors that separated the two rooms rattled constantly, and I knew I could not stay there. I decided to dress properly and go to work. I could think of nothing else to do.

him and me and her

I lived alone for several years, and I lived far from my family for a number of those years. While in Florida, I had my cat Sarge to keep me company, but most of my time in Japan was as a solitaire. After my last roommate and I parted ways, I decided that the only way I would ever live with anybody again was to be married to them.

Marriage was never something I completely ruled out of my life. I didn't want to not get married. I didn't want marry just any man; I wanted to marry the right man. I also would have been okay with cohabitation, but I had the feeling that marriage would make things easier from a legal standpoint, not to mention just for the sake of convenience. But that was really a distraction from the main point, which was that I wanted to be in love with someone before I considered living with them.

Geordie moved in with me at the beginning of February, 2011. Though, really, "moved in" is just a convenient way to put it. It was possible that it was going to be a temporary thing, a place for him to live while he looked for a permanent job and while I looked for a new one. He was temporarily assigned a position in Hitachi, which was far enough away from Moriya for him to be unable to make a daily commute. So, really, he lived with me on the weekends. The rest of the week, I was still alone. We'd seen more of each other when we weren't living together.

Two weeks after he moved in, we found out I was pregnant. We saw no way for him to be able to leave the job he had, so for a month, he was home only on the weekends. I was pregnant alone, and it was tough going. It felt to me that I was becoming more adjusted to the pregnancy than he was, and to be fair, that was probably true. I lived with the pregnancy constantly; for him, it was a weekend thing. He didn't go through the many bodily changes that reminded me of what was happening or the mood swings that shook me into sudden bouts of crying. Or the tiredness - that sheer exhaustion that knocked me out cold. These were oddities to him, things I had to explain again every weekend. That ended with the Tohoku earthquake, the story of which is far too long to tell here and shall be written about at length in November.

Things changed after the earthquake. Geordie came back from Hitachi, and his company sent him to work in Tokyo, which was an unpleasant commute but one that allowed him to come home every day. From then on, I had him every day and every night. We became a daily occurence for each other, and it was during this time, I think, that the pregnancy became a very real thing for him. It was at that point that we became not a unit of two but a unit of three.

It happened faster than I had expected. One month, I was living alone happily enough; the next, I was living with a family - my family. I had thought that would take longer to adjust to, but by the time we moved to Susono, it was done. I was a wife and a mother, carrying a child that would make our little family complete. I was carrying our child, and nothing could have been more right. Everything was as it should be, and I would not have gone back to living alone for anything. I still wouldn't.

Geordie and Lauren and me. We're a family. We always will be. Lauren is a part of us, still loved and cared for. It doesn't matter that she's not physically here with us; she's here in other ways, and we'll carry her with us for the rest of our lives.

the dangers of night riding

I've mentioned before (in my Kamakura post) that my night vision isn't that great. I know this and even accept it, but apparently, my subconscious feels the need to remind me of it every once in a while.

I've ridden home from the Isesaki train station at night a number of times now, and it's lit rather decently, so I thought I knew my way around it alright. To get from the bike park to the road, you have to cross a street and get up on the sidewalk. Well, I forgot that the sidewalk had a curb to it; I saw it too late and plowed right into it. I'm not even sure if I had time to hit the brakes. One moment, I was thinking, "Oh, crap, I'm going to hit that curb, I should do something about it," and the next, I was flying off my bike. I always thought that flying over handlebars was an exaggeration, but it turns out that it's entirely possible if you hit something head on. I didn't exactly shoot over the handlebars, but I did get kinda flung over them, to painful results. Of course, I landed heavily on my knees, but my right foot got caught on the pedal and sort of broke my fall on that side. It also pulled my shoe off.

My initial reaction to this was typical for me: I laughed uproariously at my complete and total idiocy. Yes, when I injure myself, I laugh. A string of expletives also came out as I berated myself, but mostly I laughed. I also inspected the knees of my jeans because I could feel that my knees were badly damaged and I was wearing my favorite pair. Miraculously, they came through unscathed. My knees themselves were not so lucky, especially my left one. I could feel dampness and immediate swelling.

I was still gathering my wits about me when I noticed two young Japanese men approaching slowly on their own bikes. I didn't think I was able to get myself up yet, so I tried to scoot out of the way to let them pass. I can only imagine what they were thinking (crazy drunk foreigner, probably - I was, after all, sitting on the sidewalk with only one shoe and laughing about the fact that I'd just crashed), but they very kindly stopped to help me. One them picked up my bike and inspected it for damages while the other helped me up. They were very nice, and one of them pointed out my completely useless light and kept saying, "Broke? Broke? Need fix." I'm not sure if he thought it was broken in the fall or if he was telling me to get it fixed (and therefore avoid any further accidents), but I appreciated the concern. I've been meaning to get it fixed ever since I got the bike.

They asked me several times if I was alright, and after making a show of inspecting myself and thanking them profusely in Japanese (which is one thing I can do and do well - they certainly appreciated it and shook their heads and said, "no problem, it's ok, it's ok"), they continued on their way. I took a few more moments to collect myself before setting off on my journey home, which takes about 20 minutes.

I immediately noticed that my handlebars were a bit cockeyed, and my tires were definitely a little flatter than before. There wasn't enough light to really see how bad the damage is, so I'll have to do a more thorough inspection in the morning. I'll probably have to take it to Cainz Home and get some work done on it. The least I should do is get that stupid light fixed.

That was the least of my problems, though. It rained the past two days, and now that lovely mountain wind is blowing through the valley, and I AM SO SICK OF IT THAT I COULD SCREAM. My students just shrug and say, "That's Gunma!" but they're not out riding their bikes around in it, are they (well, maybe Naofumi-san is, but he's a road racer and is therefore more capable of dealing with such conditions, and when I mention the weather, he just grimaces and complains about it too). It's bad enough when my knees don't hurt, but I thought I was going to pass out from sheer exhaustion. However, this did assure me that my knee hadn't been completely destroyed; I could still muster some form of locomotion, which I doubt would be possible if I'd broken my kneecap.

Currently, I am in great pain, so knowing that I was able to walk and ride on it comforts me. The numbness in my knee (either from the initial pain or the incredible cold) has worn off, and great bolts of agony rip down my knee into my leg whenever I move. I have a very beautiful strawberry forming on that left knee, and it's swelling to a nice size. My right knee is a little skinned and swollen, but it's otherwise fine. It might have a little bruising tomorrow, but I'm sure the left one will be the show stealer. Well, at least I'll have a story to tell my students.

Speaking of students, I do have some bad news about GEOS Isesaki, but I feel that I've had enough hardships for tonight, and I don't really want to write about it. Tomorrow, I'll get to it. Right now, I just want to eat a lot of chocolate and watch a movie or something that doesn't require a lot of my energy.

And, just for the sake of entertainment, chew on this: I slept through an earthquake this morning. Well, not exactly slept - it did wake me up. At first, I thought my (already very strange) dream was getting weirder, and then I realized I was awake. It wasn't strong at all, just a weak shaking, like someone picking up the apartment building and jostling it about. I heard some dishes clanking about in the sink, but that was it. It didn't last very long; I'm not entirely sure because I was half-asleep. I also feel immediately back to sleep when I heard birds start singing again.

When I woke up, I went online to see what I could find about it, mostly to prove to myself that it wasn't a dream. An earthquake did indeed occur, just a little before 7am, approximately 18 miles off the coast and of 5.8 magnitude. Apparently, no damages were reported.

It turns out that this is not the first earthquake since I arrived in Japan: there was one in December too, also off the coast and would probably have been felt inland. I do not recall this at all.