We will rebuild

This is video from my security camera of the first minute of the earthquake. It wasn't snowing, that's snow being shaken out of the trees near the house.

By now everyone who wants to has learned about the earthquake Alaska experienced a couple of weeks ago. Now comes some time to reflect. First, this was my initial response to the national media reporting the quake. I have seen "horrible," "terrifying" and "massive," today. CNN even said it left people in a panic. Please stop the hyperbole. Yes we had an earthquake today, and yes it was big and closer to a big population center than usual, but it is one of more than 34,000 earthquakes in the state this year. It was the strongest one I have felt in my 45 years here. But it was not horrifying, not terrifying, not massive and I saw no panic except the usual run for cover at the first shake. We are Alaskans, we are used to it, most of us are at least somewhat prepared for it and we roll with it. After the shaking stops we stand up, dust ourselves off and start the cleanup. We don't need an excitable press making it sound worse than it is. And, please, we have nowhere to store thoughts and prayers.

      With an initial survey complete in my mind I went on facebook with this: Holy crap that was a big earthquake.

     All that said, We assessed the damage. For my place in Palmer, well, two picture frames. I was more worried about the cabin at the East Pole, but when I opened the door a couple of days ago, I was greeted by a green flashlight on the floor. So it goes. My friend Joe May who lives about 20 miles west of the East Pole some pictures on the wall were knocked akilter and he swears that his old cabin with its round base logs rolled back and forth and is not exactly where it was before the quake. Most tragic where two ceramic mugs a friend had made for him bounced off a shelf and broke. He was lamenting that online a day or so later and from some hidden shadow in my brain I recalled reading about Japanese artisans who repair such items with gold. Being far better read than I am, Joe recalled the name of the process and allowed as how he had a little gold in the house. As the saying goes, the rest is history or to say it properly. 
Joe May HIS STORY.
The rest of this is his account of the adventure:
KITSUGI
The sound of breaking glass and crockery during an earthquake is both terrifying and heartbreaking. 

Keepsakes that harbor memories...on the floor...in a hundred pieces.
"GONE!! GONE!! GONE!!" An experience here shared by many I'm sure.
Pondering the box of broken bits the next day the gloom began to lift when I recalled reading of a Japanese method of mending broken pottery. Half art and half practicality, 'kitsugi", using lacquer and gold to knit the pieces together, is a slow and tedious process requiring tree resin and flour gold...things which I have not....but I did have slow epoxy and cinter mica that could work and look the same.
A piece so "reborn", according to tradition, takes on a special significance lending it a nobility not possessed by the original...speaks to the infrangibility of memories. Something to believe in....
The one cup, in half a dozen pieces, was a simple glue job. The other was another story. A handful of shards, chips, and jagged fragments.
Hours of fitting, grinding, and repositioning tiny pieces culminated in a fair reconstruction...and a big sigh...and I swear, to faint applause coming from a cloud bank over this old cabin. "Audra??".
Audra Forsgren, late mistress, cook, and greeter at Ophir checkpoint, a stop on the 1979 Iditarod long ago hand made and gifted me a pair of ceramic cups as a remembrance of "First Team to Ophir' that year. One of the few reminders of the races and the dogs that I've kept through the years.
In hindsight, I think I needed to rescue these more for Audra than for myself. Now they have a uniqueness like no others in the world. ..and a place farther back on the shelf.
I'M BACK
    I hope no one takes offense at the lighter note here. There were some very serious losses, houses that collapsed, homes termed unlivable without repairs, schools damaged, public buildings, fortunately no serious injuries. And,atta-boys and -girls to all the emergency responders, the road builders, the inspectors and engineers and anyone else who epitomized the strength and resilience of Alaskans and got all the rest of us back to somewhat normal, mostly within 72 hours.