Jishin

Sent out a few emails yesterday to friends in Japan; of those I've heard back from, everyone is okay. I worry about those I haven't heard from though.

Jishin is the Japanese for earthquake. I noticed, when I lived in Tokyo, that when it happens, people will look around for something hanging like a plant or something on a hanger, for the swaying. They're so used to earthquakes, some of them, that's how they know it's an earthquake. "Jishin," they say to each other, quietly. 

I watched a few of the videos online of the quake, then last night I dreamed I was there while it was happening.  I remember the feeling, especially with the big quakes, of feeling trapped. There is nowhere to run and nothing to trust. It's a horrible feeling.

In 2006, I experience a large earthquake. It was terrifying.

I step off the elevator onto what should be a solid floor. But the floor too is shaking and I have just enough time to think, hmm, that’s strange. I wonder what’s going on? I realize with a start that it’s an earthquake. A big one. The whole building is shaking, and I am shaking too. My apartment is four steps from elevator, and all I can think of is taking refuge in the suddenly uncertain safety of my own apartment. I step forward to my door and, my hands trembling, I try to put one of my keys in the lock. It won’t go in. I try the other key that’s on my ring. It won’t go in either.

The building continues to shake and sway violently. I notice that my door looks as though the jam was popped sideways. The door isn’t sitting right. I am confused by the shaking building, by the unfamiliar door. I look up at the apartment number to find that I’m not on the right floor. I had pressed the button for the eighth floor but I’m standing on the fourth floor. The elevator had dumped me out on the floor it was closest to when the building started to shake. Now the lights in the elevator are off and its doors resolutely closed. Not that I'd climb into a tiny metal cage at this point anyway. Instead, I head for the door to the stairwell, open it, wonder if I should go out.

I can see the street from where I’m standing, Four stories below me on the sidewalk is a large pot filled with water. The water in the pot is sloshing violently from side to side. An old woman walks by the pot, seemingly unconcerned at the possibility that this might be the quake that levels the city. I think: What’s the matter with you people?

I’m afraid even if that old woman is not. I fight back tears.

A voiced recording is broadcast over the neighborhood. A calm female voice assures the public that...what? I wonder. The recording does nothing to reassure those of us who don’t speak enough Japanese to understand the words she's saying. What is the Japanese, I wonder, for “The world is coming to an end.”

I wait for the larger part of the quake to pass, then I climb the stairs to my apartment. This time my key opens my door. The apartment is in shambles--but to be fair, that’s mostly my fault. All that the earthquake has done is overturn my bookshelves and shake a few dishes from their perch. I sigh, set down my parcels.

The pictures, the videos are disturbing. The deaths and destruction are heartbreaking. But if I know the Japanese at all, even a little, I know that they are already picking themselves up, dusting themselves off, and reaching for the plans they have already in place to get everything back in order, better than before. In Japan, mourning seemed never to preclude moving on.