Such a life position was not new to me, however I once again reconceived it after learning that Steve Jobs “lived each day as if it was the last day in his life”. Maybe the yesterday earthquake, echoes of which reached my town, have strengthen that life position.
I was on the eleventh floor of our high-rise building in the high-land district of the city but hadn’t felt the first of the tremors. After we were warned by my grandfather we started feeling THAT becoming stronger and stronger. The angles of the chandeliers swinging were growing bigger, the floor was repeating the motion of the breathing earth, and then during the strongest of the shakes our walls began to creak. I can’t say now what exactly was creaking, maybe that was the wallpaper tearing apart, maybe plaster was cracking, or maybe armature reinforcement produced that creaking noise, maybe something else. The only thing I know is that I felt my blood has ran cold and I was paralyzed with inability to move anywhere, even more that I didn’t want to join the mob rushing down the shaft of stairs in panic. I found myself standing in the hall, my grandfather did not want to go outside and kept on sitting in the reception-room, while my mom and brother were begging him to leave the building. “Should everything end up in such a way!?”, I was thinking….
My grandfather was right in his belief in the reliable design of our building that stood the Spitak’s earthquake in 1988. However I was still feeling as if everything was moving around me in the next few hours. A Horror! Probably that will remain in my memory for quite a long time.
Thinking positively, I hope this incident will push me to not stand still, to go forward, to constantly create something and value the days I am given, understanding that each of them may be the last one.
