8.9

Japan. I can't find words to express the shock, horror and sadness at what has happened in Japan in the last 24 hours. How do you prepare and protect for such a disaster? This earthquake was so strong in shifted the Earth's axis by about 2cm (heard on 20/20 tonight.) It's hard enough when the ground you trust to carry you shakes and crumbles but then to be swamped with wave after wave of water.... where do you go? How far can you run?

I'm watching Anderson Cooper on CNN right now and when I first tuned in, the video of the water just knocking everything down in it's path looked computer generated. All the debris in the water looked like an air-shot of a heard of animals running together in a vast landscape. Everything that we create as a species is destroyed and traveling in this fast-flowing water.

There are people stranded on the roofs of buildings, no one knows if there are people who didn't get out of there cars before they were swallowed by the waves. The things I never think of in situations like this were brought to the front of my mind when the quake hit Haiti last year. Things like going to the bathroom, no food, the only things you have is what you have at the moment of the disaster, no communication, no knowledge of those you care for. A reporter just said that everyone she has spoken with has lost a loved one.

And the nuclear power plants with a cooling system that has shut down... if the radiation gets too hot....I don't even want to think... that would be an inconceivable disaster.

How does a society recover from something this awful? Step by step, but where do you start? You can't really get a mop and clean up the ocean in your neighborhood. And where do you go while you wait?

I realize I'm asking rhetorical questions and also questions that everyone in the world is wondering at the same time. But questioning helps me wrap my mind around something that is so huge and confusing while I try to understand.

I want to help, I just donated here. I want to hug and give and pick up and tell people it will be OK. But Mother Nature is a strong, fierce force. It's going to take a lot of world-wide hugs and caring to beat her.

Japan and all the other countries suffering from this quake/tsunami, you are in my heart. You are in my thoughts. Know the world stands with you, behind you, next to you. You will recover. You have to recover. Keep your faith in your hearts and patience in your mind. We are with you.