the tricky thing about invasive thoughts is what if they’re right? because their source isn’t always irrational in and of itself, it’s not irrational to worry about megaquakes when you live on the West Coast where the plates sink and melt beneath your feet, where pressure builds offshore for hundreds of years only to one day, one singular unexpected inexplicable moment just snap and send shock waves rippling through earth, water, air and reduce order to chaos, it could happen any time so you start looking for signs just in case, do earthworms on the pavement mean something’s coming, can they feel the tension in the soil about to erupt, is that why the birds are gathered in such strange patterns, the animals restless, was that a tremor just now or the dryer upstairs? and the irony, always the irony that anxiety doesn’t make you better prepared, compulsive obsession doesn’t give you any mastery over these forces, they just make you more aware of all the things that can go wrong, oh are you ever so aware of all the things that can go wrong
Only Fragments
Love Letters to the Tar Pit
Only Fragments 
The thought and expectation of an earthquake is always with us in California. My family and I went through the 1994 one with minimal loss and damages, but the uncertainty of where the next one will take its toll can be unnerving. Having lived there for seven years, I know the mid-westerners live with the threat of cyclones. The southern states have hurricanes. And so it goes. The Earth gives and takes.
Precisely.
I really like this. Said it before, I know, but I really like the way you write. Wonderful use of words and flow. Enjoyed this piece very much. ~ Bill
Oh gosh, thank you so much!