I remember my first big quake. It was 1971, and I was nine. My brother was in the top bunk, and I thought he was shaking the bed to wake me up (he liked doing that), but it kept on going, and my mom was running around exclaiming her fear about what was happening. My dad said, "It's an earthquake, and your mother is running around trying to put the house together."
The earthquake cracked the concrete floor of our bedroom and a gas line running beneath. Gas was slowly seeping into the room, but through the dirt, the floor and the carpet, it really didn't smell like gas. No one worried about it, and my brother graduated to the third bedroom, and I continued to live in that bedroom until I was fourteen when my parents split up. An inspector found the problem years later. I guess that explains all my pointless, rambling posts!
It was a weird feeling; you mean this thing called 'ground' that I've been running, jumping and riding my bike on could come loose?
Earthquakes became a metaphor for how little I could really count on stuff to stay stable (including my parents' marriage). I realized what Buddhism was telling me all along; permanence is an illusion.