It's hard when a frustrated tear leaks between the lines (or I think it does). When do I wonder about underground rumblings or name them as such?

When I was a little girl, I felt earthquakes everyday. My parents and I stayed with friends in California for at least a week. At that time, they lived in a large trailer home. Mom had told me a story about going to college in California, living with earthquakes, walking home during earthquakes, seeing bricks shake from tops of tall buildings.

My imagination flew away. Surely the roads would crack in half, buildings would topple over, trailer homes would split in half.

I felt the tremors and the trembling, heard the rumbling of a land about to swallow my current home.

Finally, I told Mom that I was scared and why.

"There haven't been earthquakes," she told me. "That's the drier."