The Earth Moved

When I was a kid (post banana-seat bike, pre-10-speed bike), we had a pretty good sized earthquake. I was standing in the family room, my mother was sitting on a sofa just under a window and beside a bookcase with a 40-gallon fish tank on top. She had a plate of rice on her lap, and she was holding a fork.

It all happened in a matter of seconds, but like most major events, time appeared to slow down substantially. First, the ground moved in a gentle side-to-side motion. The fish tank water was sloshing a little. I didn't know what was going on. Next, it felt like a series of waves rolling through the family room. A clock fell off the wall. It felt like an amusement park ride.

"Cool!" I yelled. And it was. It was like getting a ride for free, and I have always been a big fan of roller coasters, speedboats, and other devices that shake up your insides. And this one didn't even require tickets!

Then I saw my mother's face.

She was green. Her hand, wrapped around her fork, was clenched tighter than I thought anything could clench. She leaned forward, away from the big window, pushed me away from the glass sliding door, looked up at me, straight in the eye, burped slightly as if she was stifling a wave of nausea, and said, "No. NOT cool."

She dropped her fork and set down her plate, and got to the serious business of getting us away from all the windows and other hazards, like hanging cupboards in the kitchen, and any walls covered with large framed art.

I had never be fore, and have not seen since, the level of absolute fear I saw on her face. Pure and vulnerable, absolutely terrified, she could barely move.

In order to understand how bizarre it was to see her so scared, you have to know the basics about her. My mother was born in the lower 48, and raised in Alaska. When she was in high school, she started hanging out at the municipal airport in Anchorage. She had her pilot's license by the time she was I think 16. She was one of only two female pilots rated for twin-engine planes in all of Alaska in the 1960s.

She was a bush pilot in possibly the most hazardous terrain and atmospheric conditions in the world, and she had more fun doing it than she's ever had doing anything else. Whereas a lot of young people who grow up in relatively rustic areas turn to drink and partying, my mother took her friends on puddle-jumping jaunts all over her home state on the weekends.

The day after her 20th birthday, March 27th, 1964, her brother was driving her home along a strip of road just beside the municipal airport where she spent so much of her time. The car started lurching, and they both thought the car had a flat tire.

Then, the road started opening and closing like cracks in dry cookie dough. Everything was moving, and the city of Anchorage was quite literally destroyed. Flattened to the ground in just minutes. Since that earthquake, my grandmother has never and will never take a room higher than the 3rd floor.

My mother, who was a nursing student at the time, volunteered to fly supplies and assist with any medical needs to Inuit villages and other towns with no other access to help.

She never talked about it much. I managed to get her to talk about it once, and luckily I had a voice recorder. She said that she had never seen anything as destructive and horrible until lower Manhattan just after 9/11. Flying aid after the earthquake was how she met my father. People really do form fast bonds in the face of extreme trauma.

When I stood in that family room and saw my mother's face and heard those three words, "No. NOT cool," I got it for the first time. I understood the concept that it was absolutely important to stop and think before saying anything.

That was the first time I completely grasped the concept of perspective. It wasn't an epiphany, it was the understanding that in order to fully appreciate the people around me, I need to try to see events through their eyes. I need to look at someone's face before opening my big, fat mouth.

Not many people think that way, I have found. It's more important to most people to make sure everyone around them knows THEIR perspective, so they talk and talk and talk about themselves until their faces turn blue. But to them, they're doing you a favor. They're doing the work FOR you.

Instead of trusting you to make an effort to read them, they're telling you exactly how they feel. And what do you do? In all likelihood, you return the favor and tell them all about you, before you even stop for a second to digest what they've told you about themselves.

When I'm having a conversation with someone, I prefer to listen, wait a beat to think a little bit, and then proceed. A lot of people can't deal with even the briefest of pauses, and a lot of people tell me that I'm "quiet," and things like, "You don't say much, but it's clear you have a lot going on upstairs."

If you knew me at all, you'd know that I'm anything but quiet, and that I'm really not that bright (Hell, you can tell that by just reading this blog, or even by the fact that I have a blog at all!). I'd just rather simplify things. Instead of explaining everything, I will give the simplest answer I can, and try to actively listen to what people are saying, and think about why they are saying it.

Clearly, this doesn't apply to every conversation I have. Often, for the sake of efficiency, things have to be said quickly. That's fine. I'm talking more about conversations with people I care about. I try to appreciate the people I call friends. That's all.

I sometimes feel bad when I think that there are people out there who have never actually had anyone genuinely try to understand where they're coming from.

But hey, it took a fucking earthquake to make me figure it out. Actually, it took two.