When the dancing ground frightens our feet
it is only the Goddess twitching in Her sleep
a hunting beast
Her dreaming hurts no one; it is falling stone that kills,
the inflexible fortresses we kid ourselves will last
are our own hazard upon the shifting land
and we fear every deep shudder will bring down some town in a storm of mortar and glass;
yet you know these minuscule adjustments only express the fierce inevitable desire of continent for
continent, release strain; and we must live in tents
translucent, adaptable to time and tectonics
if we hope to live
When you live a historical event, if you are like me, you want to read the history of it. When an October earthquake left Santa Cruz on the front page of almost every newspaper in the world, our damage, death, trials, losses, and sadness ceased being personal events and became history. There it was in the newspapers for all the lazy historians of the future to see.
If you are compelled to read the coverage of your personal up-close disaster by famous out-of-town newspapers, you're not reading them because you need the truth or the “story.” First you look for the mistakes, then the omissions. Then after a while, you start to remember what you read in those papers, and forget what you knew as it happened. And history changes. Your own history changes. You forget what was important to you at the time, because it wasn't in the papers. It wasn't written down. What was your first thought? Was it “Will the world series be cancelled?” Or was it, “Do we have enough apple juice for the children?”
if we hope to live
If you are compelled to read the coverage of your personal up-close disaster by famous out-of-town newspapers, you're not reading them because you need the truth or the “story.” First you look for the mistakes, then the omissions. Then after a while, you start to remember what you read in those papers, and forget what you knew as it happened. And history changes. Your own history changes. You forget what was important to you at the time, because it wasn't in the papers. It wasn't written down. What was your first thought? Was it “Will the world series be cancelled?” Or was it, “Do we have enough apple juice for the children?”
A month after the quaketime, I read the October 18 and 19th editions of the LA Times, the San Francisco Chronicle, the London Times, and the Fresno Bee. I was looking for stories about Santa Cruz. I found mistakes; I found out things that I hadn't known. I started to forget what my life had been and shifted, chameleon-like into the trained newspaper reader that I am. Then I asked myself questions until I came back to myself, and lived though yet further upheavals.
What the Papers Said
They say foundation as if it meant forever
that fragile concrete shell they lay down and lay money on
they forget that below foundation lies fundament
the hot black heart of things, dreaming of change
biding its time. they forget we are only sleeping
and build card towers, credit card towers, vying wildly for height and ostentation
building on the hide of the beast that sleeps
carving their little names in it, crowing.
six inches under this broken yellow line
She sleeps; five feet under your kitchen floor,
fifty feet under the crosswalk and ten feet
under the third rail?mere epidermal measures:
no tattoo or encrustation
diverts Her slow ballet: She dances, She speaks.
Santa Cruz didn't appear in the LA Times until the second day. Then we got a one-column side story above the fold which jumped to page 6 where there were small capsule stories about Santa Cruz, Los Gatos, Hollister and San Jose. The Santa Cruz story focused on the destruction of the mall, the two confirmed deaths on the mall, experiences of eyewitnesses on the mall, where the displaced were staying, reports on interruption of utilities, blocked highways, UC Santa Cruz ok with some injuries from falling books, and students now back in their dorms.
A photo essay on page 5 included the photo of the Shandrydan sidewalk with bricks crushing a car and a bicycle. Also a photo of the Ford's rescue.
Page 8 had a story about Aptos mountain dwellers who were unimpressed with living at the epicenter. Apparently the poor LA writer was sent up there to talk to people who were scientifically at the center of it, but actually far away from the real event. But the epicenters didn't sustain damage. Earthquakes are not tornados. The folks up there didn't have much to say, their houses weren't wrecked and they had generators and well water and propane heat. "It's almost a festival here," one resident is quoted.
We were news in England, on the 19th. The earthquake damage in San Francisco was above the fold of the London Times and the event was referred to as the "San Francisco" quake. Page 2 had five stories. One headline about the rest of us ran: "Buildings in the whole town were swaying." In paragraph 6: "In nearby Santa Cruz and Watsonville, about 40 buildings collapsed. "You could see huge clouds of smoke going into the air." Mr Greg Higgins, who was driving near Santa Cruz, said, "It was complete pandemonium." The "town" in the headline refers to San Juan Baptista.
There were five other stories about San Francisco mostly and California in general. The Times was interested by "our response": "The absence of panic was perhaps the most striking aspect of the 1989 California earthquake." An editorial confirmed my suspicions that they think we are crazy to live here where the earth moves.
The editors told Californians that it is a good idea to treat the
quake as a dress rehearsal. Curiously, the first paragraph said "One of mankind's oldest enemies struck the State of California on Monday evening," as if the movement of earth is adversarial. The back page continued the stories from the front, and included a map with Santa Cruz on it, and in the right place.
By the next day, however, the paper favored news from West Germany over the "SF quake." It was now found under "Overseas News" with three quake stories, but one about Japanese preparedness and another about the Chinese quake. The other California story was about how Californians are moving out of the state now.
Then there is the paper that doesn't know when to quit, the San Francisco Chronicle. The 8-page "quake edition" was very fun to read, especially since I know they had to resort to the lowly Macintosh computer to produce it.
By the next day, however, the paper favored news from West Germany over the "SF quake." It was now found under "Overseas News" with three quake stories, but one about Japanese preparedness and another about the Chinese quake. The other California story was about how Californians are moving out of the state now.
Then there is the paper that doesn't know when to quit, the San Francisco Chronicle. The 8-page "quake edition" was very fun to read, especially since I know they had to resort to the lowly Macintosh computer to produce it.
The Chron was obsessed with San Francisco, especially her bridges and her wealthy neighborhoods. Santa Cruz was the last county mentioned in a page 5 story called "Quake Damage County by County": three killed, several blocks on fire (not true) and numerous buildings collapsed throughout the county. Highway 17 closed. By the next day the paper was almost normal-sized, but still no mention of Santa Cruz county until page 6 in a story about the seven Bay area counties. Death toll was reported at as many as eight (wrong), a damage estimate in dollars (impossible to know), 40 buildings collapsed, 350 people in shelters (very wrong), water unsafe to drink. But on page 7, a very titillating story called "Astonishing Tales from the Epicenter" was all about Santa Cruz county except for a lead which is about Hollister, in San Benito county, miles from the epicenter.
In a photo essay, a dramatic photo of Shockley's Jewelry and the car crushed by a tree was captioned: "People were killed at the Santa Cruz mall in a coffee shop (right). The sports car driver escaped."
The Fresno Bee had the best coverage of any of the out-of-county papers I examined, extremely better; many of the stories contained more true facts and quotations than the Sentinel's. As I read these stories a month later, I learned things I hadn't heard of anywhere else. There were more reporters on the story, and the reporters talked with more people. The stories contained facts from public employees and politicians, which were not solely the duff handed out on "fact sheets" at press conferences.
In the October 18th edition, the lead story contained news from Santa Cruz, and clearly the devastation was much worse in Santa Cruz than in the Marina District, if not as immediately dramatic. There was even news from Capitola (eye-witness account of chimneys down) on the front page, before the story jumped to the back. Though it was reported that someone was trapped in a basement near the collapsed Cafe "Zitoh," everything else was fresh news, bright news, with lots of quotes from folks just like me who were there.
The writers compared the damage at the mall with the damage at Coalinga a few years before. This kind of experience with a similar natural phenomenon is shown in the language of, and methods used to gather, the story. None of the other papers mentioned lowly little Coalinga. A reporter talked with someone who was on the mall during the quake who said "the mall looks like tanks ran through it," which is an accurate description. The reporter also spoke with a former Fresno resident who attends UCSC who watched the facades falling.
They got quotes from state and local politicians in both Santa Cruz and San Benito counties. This story had eight reporters, which included two in Santa Cruz, one each in Gilroy, Hollister and Watsonville.
In the edition of the 19th, the Roasting Company vigil was below the fold but front page, nonetheless, with a photo. The story also contained information about damage to houses, people getting supplies, details of the Roasting Company collapse. The story was written by two reporters who were right here, obviously making good use of their eyes and ears.
In the same edition was another story about Santa Cruz on the back page. It is about Santa Cruz getting back to normal, price gouging, people sad about the loss of dishes, and how they just happened not to do something which put them in the right place not to be killed by falling brick.
There were other stories about rich Fresnans who worried about their second homes in Santa Cruz county and the businesses they had invested in. Also a story about the Gottschalks here, a Fresno-based business.
The Bee continued its coverage for many more days, including front-page stories about the Phoenix pavilions and the starting of the town clock.
I Asked Myself Questions to Establish My Sense of History
still we twitch and speak random truths
in our uneasy dream
and unplanned gates appear in all their fences
They have not built the sea wall nor piled the rip rap
that will keep woman from woman; it is a tide they fight
that recurs. laying out our paths
with a straight rule and a razor
still runways crack, sidewalks buckle, and weeds
push stone aside; it is a seismic activity
that goes on regardless and underground:
conversations they do not hear
What was my experience when hearing this news for the first time? Almost everything I read in the newspapers I had first heard on the radio. For hour after hour we listened to the radio those first days until the power came on. We listened until we had to shut it off for listening obsessively, even when no news was new anymore.
I think that we listened so much to reify that our present stress, disruption, and chaos was related to some larger order. At the same time that earthquake radio focused our attention on the earthquake, it also distracted us from the upheavals that we could feel but were not being reported by anyone, not even ourselves. I think now that it would be a blessing to know that I didn't have to go to work tomorrow and could focus on being with family and friends instead. That is what I could have done those nights, we were not really in hardship, except for the aftershocks. But we didn't, we kept thinking that the outside world was more important than the inside one, the personal one, and let the radio define our conversation, our focus.
This is also why I read every newspaper I could find. I really didn't have to; I didn't need news from the outside. I could have used the release from routine commitments and responsibilities as a miracle opportunity to withdraw from the world and focus on what is truly important.
Are these newspapers "my history?" Easy answer: no. The newspapers are not meant to be. They are the history of no individual, nor are they personal histories. These newspapers are what will be remembered in the future when a historian wants to "get a feel" for this disaster. She will not know the experience of one person unless she talks with one. Why should the experience of one person be important? Because that is how people experience history. One person at a time.
Are these newspapers "my history?" Easy answer: no. The newspapers are not meant to be. They are the history of no individual, nor are they personal histories. These newspapers are what will be remembered in the future when a historian wants to "get a feel" for this disaster. She will not know the experience of one person unless she talks with one. Why should the experience of one person be important? Because that is how people experience history. One person at a time.
What was important to me during the time that this was being reported to the outside world? At the time I wouldn't have cared about what was in the papers except that they told me this all was important, so I believed them. Sure, I cared about the Bookshop inventory, but I couldn't focus on it—anyway, it didn't seem possible that Bookshop was totaled. The next day, after I went home, I worried about my house's future, my housemates' safety, did we have enough food, was I going to fly to DC on the business trip as planned, would the loan papers for my car come through the mails. These were big stories which were not in the news. I think that if someone at the time had asked, "What are the memorable events of this earthquake?" I would not have said "I wonder if my loan papers are going to get through the mails." I would have said something about the bookstore.
What was missing from the coverage? When I read these papers, I wish they had mentioned that the town wasn't leveled. Later, when I read stories which did, they read like Business Association flack.
you wake the dream in me and She twitches in my sleep
shattering concrete and diverting rivers;
the sudden changes and the slow ones
the walls that lean ponderously and fall, and the silence
and the shout of stone: She dances, She speaks.
All the papers missed it. I came close to not seeing it at all. The Real Story is that earthquake is an upheaval only on a physical plane, and that the Berlin Wall coming down a month later was part of a larger pattern of upheaval, breaking down, collapse, destruction of the Order, a rupture of all that constricts Creative living and the Creative spirit. The poems "Geology," and "Earthquake," which I have quoted in this essay, describe this larger, and Female, upheaval.
My astrologer told me about it ahead of time. "The full moons of October and November will be very intense," she told me in September. "For everyone, and you in particular." She doesn't predict earthquakes. She foresees "upheavals;" the dissolution of structure that is happening all around us, in all worlds, physical, political, social, spiritual, emotional.
During earthquake time everyone spoke of the upheaval in their lives. They used sentences like "As if dealing with the earthquake wasn't enough?" relationships, new jobs, personal revelations—all changing. All the upheavals at the time were the earthquake. We watched newspapers and TV because it was the nearest representation we could find of what was going on in our lives, in our ancient brick walls, in our fences, in our chimneys. Physical manifestation of these changes in us that we might not want to be examining.
The earthquake time came for me in a two-year period of self-reflection and revelation. Soon after the quake I noticed barriers removed which had separated me from some of the best parts of myself. They have to do with writing things down, and the re-writing, crafting words together to make the finished pieces which give me ineffable joy.
Only since the earthquake have I "allowed" myself to record my random thoughts for no reason. I stop writing, or don't start, for two reasons. One reason pretends to be professional, the other philosophical. First, I don't write because I won't finish the piece, so why not work on something that is possibly publishable but unfinished, and besides, why start something new when there are all these unfinished pieces filling your files? Or philosophically, I tell myself that I need to live life, not record it, not try to get it all down and preserve it, but to just live it and not think about writing it down later while life is happening to me.
For years I have gone around and around on this. I talk about writing sometimes like others talk about giving up booze or bingeing on sugar. I am intolerant of such people and intolerant when I am talking about writing, thinking about writing, praying about writing, even writing about writing as I am now—but not really writing.
I remember a lot of anxiety around writing soon after the earthquake. I didn't keep a journal in the days after the quake; I wrote letters and kept copies of them instead. This was "permissible."
The Real Story
you wake the dream in me and She twitches in my sleep
shattering concrete and diverting rivers;
the sudden changes and the slow ones
the walls that lean ponderously and fall, and the silence
and the shout of stone: She dances, She speaks.
My astrologer told me about it ahead of time. "The full moons of October and November will be very intense," she told me in September. "For everyone, and you in particular." She doesn't predict earthquakes. She foresees "upheavals;" the dissolution of structure that is happening all around us, in all worlds, physical, political, social, spiritual, emotional.
The earthquake time came for me in a two-year period of self-reflection and revelation. Soon after the quake I noticed barriers removed which had separated me from some of the best parts of myself. They have to do with writing things down, and the re-writing, crafting words together to make the finished pieces which give me ineffable joy.
Only since the earthquake have I "allowed" myself to record my random thoughts for no reason. I stop writing, or don't start, for two reasons. One reason pretends to be professional, the other philosophical. First, I don't write because I won't finish the piece, so why not work on something that is possibly publishable but unfinished, and besides, why start something new when there are all these unfinished pieces filling your files? Or philosophically, I tell myself that I need to live life, not record it, not try to get it all down and preserve it, but to just live it and not think about writing it down later while life is happening to me.
For years I have gone around and around on this. I talk about writing sometimes like others talk about giving up booze or bingeing on sugar. I am intolerant of such people and intolerant when I am talking about writing, thinking about writing, praying about writing, even writing about writing as I am now—but not really writing.
I remember a lot of anxiety around writing soon after the earthquake. I didn't keep a journal in the days after the quake; I wrote letters and kept copies of them instead. This was "permissible."
But soon after the quake—and I mean minutes after—I reported it to myself. I took notes on everything I saw without self-censoring. I was working on my notes for my first draft of history, the one I will be telling for the rest of my life.
A friend saw me downtown that evening. He told someone later that he saw me emerge from a cloud of dust in front of Ford's—taking notes.
I don't want to tell my "where-I-was" earthquake story. Just let it be known that at 5:15 p.m. on October 17, 1989 I was walking down Pacific Ave in Santa Cruz and I was taking notes:
Shockley's, Woolworth's collapsed
Shockley's, Woolworth's collapsed
Palomar
Trees down
Payless shoes mountain of boxes
Discount records, collapsed
Trust building, most windows out
Lily Wong's, H'ween wigs in broken windows
Medico-Dental building one wall down, 2 stories gone
rumors of the Bay Bridge collapsed onto itself
people are trapped at Fords? Palace?
(listening to staff of Logos) 45,000 at Candlestick right now
no power, rush hour, millions in BART
right now, no power here
4 newspaper stands, Sentinel only one still vertical
Ford's totaled, all windows broken out
water pours down the Good Times building
BlueMoon/Folk Arts
rescue? at Fords
street cracked
head shop collapsed
Chunks of Del Mar on sidewalk
afternoon sunbeams through roof towards Logo's parking lot, dusty, dark empty
Fake rock at Alcapulco on sidewalk
rumor: Bookshop SC gone
Could it be Hollister quake?
Worlds series canceled
(at the Metro) All the busses came home
plate glass just didn't make it
curb (here a sketch)
sidewalk exploded
Laurel sidewalk broken and weird.
Jan was with kids. "shit was flying everywhere"
Do we have water? turned off gas. Chestnut/Laurel street full of gas
Fires in the mountains
6.9 on Richter scale
Bay bridge collapsed on lower deck
people in the water
do not use phones now leave them open
Where is Ellen?
Karen got water for neighbor
neighbor's house is right off its foundation, tilted like house at Story Land
Highway 101 Watsonville is impassable
Soquel buckled/car dealerships have broken windows
River levee sliding down, cracked
Riverside St.: a woman gathers "quakefall" walnuts
signs of normal life on power poles, rock bands, yard sales. weird now
Evil weird sunset, purple black, like a bruise
its very hot, weird hot
who was saying this was earthquake weather?
My old house lost its chimneys
Del Ray condemned
smoke from woods
Shoppers people left their baskets in the aisles
6:45: now it is cold and hot. Like swimming in a lake. I hope Ellen does have her kids tonight, she will be home.
Notes
Digging deep into my precious veins
Pouring poison into my oceans.
Woe comes to those whose greed exceed
Even my wildest nightmares
My forests are dying, my people are crying
Oh woe!
My forests are dying, my people are crying
Oh woe!
I feel a deep shaking inside
I feel a deep shaking inside
I have trembled and cities have crumbled
When I shake and roar, it is the end of the dream
I feel a deep shaking inside
I have trembled and cities have crumbled
When I shake and roar, it is the end of the dream
Now re-awaken!
You will remember, remember
You will remember, remember
Remember the ghost of my bruised body
You will build a new world from dreams
With what you remember.
You will build a new world from dreams
With what you remember.
Dreams from dreams?
Wake up, oh wake up!
Wake up, oh wake up!
"Earthquakes"
While I walked down the mall taking notes I wondered what right I had to do this, why I was, and if I should be. Was it appropriate for me to take notes on what my friends were thinking and feeling, right there in front of them?
I told myself that I was taking notes on the Mall because I knew that not everyone was going to be able to see the downtown that night and I was going to report to people what I saw. Now I see that this is how my whole life could be. Some people may be interested in what I have to say.
I realized with a shock days later that it is ok for me to take notes in a situation like this. In fact, it is ok for me to take notes whenever I want. It gives a shape to my thoughts, an order. I don't notice that my thoughts need ordering. But ordering them does give me good feelings and something to do.
I realized that I am a writer so it is ok for me to write. In the 45 minutes after the quake, my two "reasons" for not writing joined the rest of the rubble. I came so close to not writing down what I saw on the mall. My notes aren't as important as the writing was, and the acknowledgment. I heard many stories about close calls: "If I had been on the other side;" "If I had made one more step into the garage;" "If I had stayed later at work." I came so close to missing it all—if I hadn't taken notes.
Footnotes:
On footnotes: Discovering that I could use footnotes in this essay was yet another rupture in the restrictions around my writing. I feared the essay would be unstructured. The footnotes ended that worry and the computer made them possible. The underground and the subliminal are often the best places to seek the Real Story.
..."Geology" published in To Live with the Weeds, D.A. Clarke, Herbooks, Santa Cruz, 1984. Other sections of this poem follow. This is one of the best poems I've ever read.
...mall. Like most of the papers, they didn’t know that “mall” has more than one definition. Most reports left one with the impression that some vapid climate-controlled shopping mall had collapsed, and what could be the fuss about one of those biting the dust?
...displaced. "Displaced" not "homeless." "Homeless" are people without homes who are no longer newsworthy.
...Ford's rescue. But not the photo made infamous by the Sentinel. Dan Coyro took that photo and the editors responsible should be rebuked and taunted. The Sentinel published a full page above-the-fold color photo of a woman being rescued from Ford's with her leg bent at the calf at a 90-degree angle. Not only did they sensationalize this, but they sent out a caption in error; her leg was not amputated. (However, what is my responsibility in describing the photo so graphicly here? Maybe you have forgotten it, if you did see it.
...Macintosh computers. Macs network together more easily than IBMs and have better and easier publishing and graphics software. Yet big companies hold emotional grudges against it. Imagine. Against a machine. Producing the Chron on Mac was yet another upheaval.
...miles from the epicenter. Except Pajaro Valley, of course, the agricultural and Latino end of the county, where no one important lives.
...coffee shop. The Roasting Company was only three blocks to the right of Shockley's.
...press conferences. I remember hearing these press conferences live on the radio. KSCO would just put them on the air, no delay, no editing. We got to hear it first just like those big-city out-of-town reporters did. And we could see their methods, hear their inane questions, hear what they thought was important and know what we would be asking if we had the chance.
...Cafe Zitoh. This is a phonetic spelling, resulting from the reporter reading the story over the cellular phone to another at the Bee in Fresno.
...former Fresno resident. Probably a friend of the reporter. Personal contacts come in handy in disasters. My dad, who worked at the Bee, told me later that when he couldn't reach me by phone he talked with the reporter here to make sure that he hadn't heard any terrible stories about me. And my uncle in Hawaii called the stringer in Santa Cruz who works for the Honolulu Advertiser to find out word of me. My safety was their real story.
...the right place. This is one of the most important aspects of this whole situation. The Bee is the only paper that mentioned it, but did not make a big deal of it. I doubt the reporter was conscious of the ubiquity of this type of story.
...dissolution of structure. I prefer to call it The End of Patriarchy; other people call it by other names, names less charged. I prefer charge.
...permissible. If I had thought about it at the time, I might have talked myself out of this too. Since traditionally the history of women has been in our letters and our journals, since we have rarely been able to write memoirs or histories, I might have talked myself out of writing these too. But my desire to tell stories to my friends wins out. Of course, many men haven't been able to write their histories either, I know this. But since millions have, who cares if yet another does? Just look for female names in the newspaper. Most stories about women (who aren't celebrities) are really about dead bodies.
...Shockley's. A man stood gingerly in the doorway shouting to the dark rubble, "Is anyone in there? Is anyone there?"
...Payless shoes. (A Payless employee looking in at the pyramids of inventory; "Oh my god, Oh my god.)
...no power. I hadn't realized that the power was out until now.
...Logos Books. This sight touched me most deeply. Picture Logos from Pacific, the entire aisle from front window display to back door. Picture a skylight—but it’s not a skylight, it is a huge hole in the roof—illuminating the otherwise dark and unpeopled room from front to back. Picture shining, beautiful dust motes dancing in the golden light of October sunset.
...Jan with kids. I had arrived at my friends' house on Spruce St.
...River Street levee. At this point I had started walking to Ellen’s [my (ex)lover's], over Broadway bridge, up Soquel to Morrissey.
...Earthquakes. Recorded the LP Possibilities by Ova, (Jana Runnalls and Rosemary Schonfeld), Stroppy Cow Records, 1984. Distributed by Ladyslipper.
...something to do. In situations like this, it is also an escape from having to do other things, like taking care of people, or looking for someone who needs my help more than I need my own.
No comments:
Post a Comment