It was a glorious morn, capped with a vivid ultramarine sky dotted with puffball clouds, tendrils drifting lazily .I was in the garden with The BoobySlayer. Pruning and priming in anticipation of the upcoming cherry blossom season. Bat Boy and Bat Girl arriving home from school, had just stepped out on the patio as I felt the first shakes. "Oh,Mum! Look at the trees!" gasped Batboy in awe. "Let`s go inside," I singsonged. As we stepped inside, the shaking started to intensify.Missiles, rudely dislodged, rained down from all angles. I will never forget standing there, mouth probably agape, three kids clutching my legs, as I struggled to stay standing and deflect flying objects. The noise was indescribable. A roaring. A howling of metal, wood and earth mingled with the screams of my children and neighbours. The rocking gained sudden momentum and we were thrown down onto the ground. I grabbed the patio door with one hand while covering my wee ones`s bodies.
I looked up at the sky. Nope, it hadn`t changed one iota over the past minute, and thought that this was going to be the day we died. At least it was a nice day for it. I suddenly thought of my Gran and one of her most common sayings. `When your number`s up. It`s up.` An image of a giant bingo ball machine popped up...balls bouncing in all directions wildly in my head. Sadness couldn't compete with the all encompassing terror mingled with a smidgen of awe at Mother nature`s capabilities. The lamp posts swinging madly like those little animal springy ride ons that my smallest one so loves. Buildings and vehicles swinging hysterically. And the people being thrown down onto the ground, like straw dollies hurled around by a child having a tantrum.
My life has been split into two parts. The naive pre `11th of march 2.46` me. Waltzing around in my little world, humming a wee ditty, secure in the knowledge that things such as civil war, plague, AIDS, huge earthquakes and tsunamis only happen to other folk...and mainly only actors in a movie. Compared to the post `11th of March` me who has looked under the bed and not only come face to face with the bogeyman but been snogged quite frenziedly by him.
Life in Tokyo is pretty much back to normal. On the surface anyway. Two months ago, the first thing I did of a morn was to put on the kettle.These days, it`s switch on the computer to check our area`s radiation levels. I still pass the same young guy every morning. A fine specimen if ever I saw one. Sweat accentuating every toned muscle as he jogs. He now dons a small Geiger clipped next to his pedanometre.
My mobile phone is now equipped with an earthquake alarm. One that can be set to differing intensities. And what kind of sound you enquire, heralds an earthquake warning? A WW2 air raid siren? A wee tune from Holst`s `The Planets`? Screaming? Nope. A trill that immediately conjures up images of Tinkerbell and conies, not screaming,mass panic, destruction or death. However, in Tokyo, it stirs the same reaction as a siren erupting into life in a biological warfare research centre, with alarms ringing simultaneously .Everyone clamouring to check magnitude and where exactly.
My view on life has changed irrevocably. Transfixed in a moment in time, that you have absolutely no control over, where you feel with your whole being that death is coming, spun my whole spiritual being on it`s axis. I feel so grateful to be alive. I savour every day. Possessions have lost their importance. Nothing, and I mean nothing means more than my family, my friends. I feel a renewed sense of purpose to not waste my life when so many thousands lost theirs.
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