Just A Reminder

While I fret and worry about what direction I should take in my next blog entry, while the world bounces from one armed conflict to the next, while half of the earth's population sleeps and the other half schemes, the planet shrugs.
That's what happened early Thursday morning in Northern California. An earthquake registering 4.4 on the Richter Scale jolted us awake with a reminder: There's something bigger than you. Bigger than Presidents and the United Nations and Disney. This planet on which we live has a lot left to say about what will happen next.
Sure, my wife and I enjoyed the ride. It was a roller coaster, a wave, a late night exhibition of the forces of nature, but it could have gone so very differently. Just another cough in the direction of severe, our little house could have been ripped in half. An act of nature, or God of you prefer, but this isn't because we happen to be on the wrong side of some geopolitical discussion. We made the somewhat dubious choice to buy a house located just a mile or two from a major fault line. This location is not unique, by the way. The entire state of California sits on what has been called "The Ring of Fire," and not because we are such fans of The Man In Black. I live, along with a vast majority of Californians, in a place that could be reduced to rubble at any minute.
It's a quality of life thing, to be sure. Why stay where we are so obviously not wanted? Just a little shift of the earth's crust and we all go looking for higher ground. And while we're at it, at an elevation of forty-two feet above sea level, it's only a matter of time before my front yard becomes beachfront property. At least human beings can take some pride in their non-ability to manage climate for that one. Those polar ice caps that once brought solace to penguins and Santa Claus are becoming a thing of the past. Human beings thought up all kinds of ways to get them to melt, but forgot that the water needed to go somewhere. The same force that made the Grand Canyon is just biding its time. Sea walls? Levees? Keep piling up those sand bags. You're gonna need them.
So now I pause to tip my hat once again to Nature. She keeps us honest even when we feel like we know better. We don't . And Nature doesn't play favorites. And even more than North Korea, she is not open to negotiations. Deal with it.