Movers and Shakers

My daughter's Grade 6 graduation ceremony was held yesterday at Rockcliffe Park Public School in the Big Gym. It was a lovely ceremony complete with awards to the best athletes, and scholars. Right in the middle of the ceremony there was a big commotion. It sounded and felt like a plane was taking off underneath the building. It might have been the subway except for the fact that we were in Ottawa and there's no subway here. Given that the school is attended by many important people's kids, it might have been a bomb. It was a "something" for sure and people started getting upset.

During the shaking I actually ducked for a moment, in case something was going to come from the ceiling. It lasted about ten seconds and then it stopped. People started yelling and those near the doors ran out. I was with my sister, my brother, my mom and my ex-husband. We were all pretty calm wondering which exit we'd go out. It turned out Remi went running with her friends. Nice one! Once outside I checked my Blackberry and sure enough, the twitterverse was abuzz with the earthquake news.

We'd just been in an earthquake that measured about 5 on the Richter scale.

People were pretty shaken but the kids were great. The whole school has a system and they lined up in their classes and the parents milled about and then we went back in. We finished the ceremony, declared the Class of 2010 to be real Movers and Shakers, had some cake, and packed up and went home.

Just the other day I tweeted, "look up. you're on a planet. let go for a minute," or something like that. We get so caught up in our lives and our games and our situations and we forget that we're on a planet. This planet it spinning and moving so fast but it does it in a way that doesn't make us feel sick. We can't slide off - I've tried - we can't fall off - gravity is like this and this is how it feels to be on this planet at this time.

As the shaking was going on I considered for a moment that "something bad" might happen and that things would change. I'm really glad that something bad didn't happen yesterday. I'm happy to go back to the games I was playing and the stuff I was working on. But I'm doing it today with a fresh reminder that I'm on a planet and things can and will change at any minute.