Shaken. Not Stirred.
On a sunny afternoon around 3 o'clock in March, my afternoon activities were interrupted by a tumultuous shaking. This must be an earthquake, I thought. The strange rolling motion took my stomach along for the ride. An electrifying combination of fear and excitement rushed through me like the wet-cold fire of a menopausal hot flash. From the tips of my toes to the top of my head, moist beads of thermodynamic reaction spread.
The violent shudders came closer and closer together with the varied and increasing intensity of pre-birth contractions. One following another followed by another. Moving was perilous. I sought to balance myself as if walking on an undulating rope bridge high above the ground. For a few minutes, the concussions came closer and closer together. Faster and faster, I rolled. Ripping horizontal slaps intermittently spaced between random twists and turns. The ordinarily horizontal skyline stood vertically, then fell sharply away. Household bric-a-brac fell, like thousands of snowflakes, from the sky.
Through the sunlit glass windows, I saw a huge, shadowy figure. Dark and distorted. And voices. Low and rumbling. Someone is out there! My pulse jumped like a frog in a race.
"Fee," I heard the muffled voice utter. "FEE!" There it was again! My first thought was to that of fee-fi-fo-fum, words from the Jack and the Bean Stalk story. Irrationally, I thought, are we being overtaken by giants?
First, the voice, barely more than a whisper, smoldered with agitation. Suddenly, the eerie quietness and pitching motion was stunned by a formidable outcry, "FIONA! I said put that snow globe down immediately and come to dinner!"
"Sorry mama. That glass with the little people in it is just so pretty."
The ground calmed. Quiet came. The serene beauty of my world, for the moment, restored.
