Earthquake Country

I’m really pleased that my essay about earthquakes, real and metaphorical, has been published in Salon. Here’s an excerpt:

An earthquake struck tonight.

I registered the sound before I felt it, a sense that bypassed my ears and telegraphed across my skin. I listened optimistically for the N-Judah streetcar that rumbles our house on its runs, but I also saw the light fixture swaying in the next room.

Sound, then sight, and finally feeling. I didn’t let myself think “earthquake” until I felt the couch shrug beneath me. I caught my husband Tony’s eye, but neither of us spoke, and before we’d finished absorbing the event it was gone, like a gust of wind that blows open a door but doesn’t ruffle the newspaper.

Please click on over to Salon to read the rest!

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