Shake Rattle and Roll

In one weeks time I will have experienced my first earthquake, my first MRI and my first New York City hurricane. Because my nerves really haven't had enough yet!

I was one of the people who felt the jolt that rocked the city on Tuesday. Sitting nineteen stories above the earth and one block West of Grand Central Station we swayed and shook for about thirty seconds or so. That was enough for me. My initial thought was, not unlike many others I've talked to since, that I was loosing my mind. Or for me, having a horrible anxiety attack.

My co-worker had just returned from lunch and was putting her things away in the pantry, so I was alone in the reception area. I answered the phone and put the caller on hold- thinking, something is so wrong here. Then, I stood up, in a effort to find some stability (little did I know...) and grabbed onto the desk. I then noticed the ficus tree swaying and thought, "If I'm the only one experiencing this, something is not right with me."

I pushed open the door that leads to the back offices. I prayed that I wouldn't find sixty people sitting calmly at their cubicles and in their glass-walled offices typing normally, earbuds on, chomping on trail-mix. And I didn't.

People were standing, startled, proclaiming things like, "Did you feel that?" "What was that?" "What just happened?" Turns out, I'm not loosing my mind after all!

Several of us grabbed our belongings and bolted (on the elevator, obviously!) Even then, we all knew, as someone yelled, "women and children first"- that the elevator was not the correct way out of the building if we suspected a bomb or attack to the building itself or an earthquake even. But in my mind I thought: "I'm with Heidi (the other receptionist, who has become a dear friend) and I'm with this guy and that guy and this guy and they have spouses and children and are great people. So, if we all die in this elevator, then, well, we all die. At least I'm with people I like."

On42nd Street people were everywhere on the sidewalks. I realized I didn't have my cell phone, which was the reason I was one of the first ten or so people to go back into the office about fifteen minutes later.

The day resumed as usual. Some people in our offices and on other floors didn't even feel the need to evacuate the building. Me personally, I just wanted to know if it was an explosion three blocks away, or just our building or if it was indeed an earthquake.

For a few hours afterward I still felt nauseous, like I'd just gotten off of a boat, or tried to stand on a waterbed.

All this episode did (and all the upcoming hurricane evokes for me) is how helpless we are in NYC against natural disaster and other attacks as well. We are 2.6 million people living on 23 square miles, that's 71,000 people per square mile. And this does not include the people who commute here from all the other boroughs and New Jersey to work five days a week. SO- we are millions of people on an island built on trash which is pretty much hollow underneath; subway lines and caverns of train rails coming and going all over the North East.

Not the safest of options.

But, I survived shake of the earthquake, which was really nothing compared to the 25 minutes spent rattling inside the tiny tube of the MRI machine. Holy Moly. It's not a pleasant experience: cold, tight, loud, obnoxious, you don't know what to expect. But again, I made it through. (Even though the little tech guy was not satisfied with my answer to the questions: Could you be pregnant? (?? mmm) Are you experiencing a delayed period? (mmm, yes) What was the date of your last period? (March, 2010)

As the large camera helmet was strapped on my head I just prayed, "God please protect my unborn child if I am pregnant..." And please don't let me go into panic mode in this coffin-like box I'm in. I'm safe. I'm not trapped. You're closer than my very breath.... Exhale.

So, now I'm preparing, if only mentally, for a hurricane.