Where Was I?

On writing through an earthquake

The most memorable earthquake I’d ever experienced was the 2001 Nisqually, which registered 6.8 in the Seattle area, and about 3.2 here in southern BC. I was in the middle of an employment exam at the University of British Columbia. There were maybe a dozen of us in the room, with its distinct institutional-blah decor, the desks facing inward in square-formation. Our heads down and our pens drawn, we mulled over standardized questions, scribbling answers we hoped would get us to the next round of interviews. A rumble rattled everything around us—walls, desks, chairs, floors—as if a semi truck had just hit the building at a 100-km-per-hour clip. We glanced about, all of us wearing the “Was that what I think it was?” look on our faces, then returned to our task at hand, visually reassured that things were well enough to keep going.

On Friday, late morning, it was feeling like a VeryVancouver day, as I walked along the Seawall, admiring the rainy greyed-out skyline. I even shot a bit of video, meant for another project but posted here because of its relevance (apologies for the shoddy audio-visual quality.)

(Video by Tamara Lee, Feb 21, 2025)

An hour later I was sitting in the old Sylvia Hotel lounge, warming up with some Earl Grey tea and jotting down notes for a story that includes a Sylvia lounge scene or two. I watched the boats and birds hover in English Bay, with the tip of Point Grey just on the left, the vast Pacific Ocean to the right.

The Sylvia is one of the few places in this part of Vancouver that isn’t an obnoxious chain restaurant or characterless tourist-trap. There remains a quaintness to the 115-year-old hotel, and it boasts one of the most spectacular views in the area. It’s often frequented by—during the daytime at least—writers, artists, theatre folk, a few start-up tech bros. As it was this drizzly Friday afternoon—a dozen of us, all drinking tea, except for the tech bros, who’d just ordered another bottle of white. I felt a kind of calm as I looked out onto the bay and noticed the unusual flatness to the ocean, barely a wave or a ripple to be seen.

That familiar rumble started and took hold of the building for maybe thirty seconds. After a moment of exchanging mild surprise, the tech bros loudly exchanging a “Whoa,” we went back to what we were doing. Business as usual—for us, for the serving staff, for the old brick building as it, too, settled back into place.

Following these kinds of events people often want to tell the story of “Where I Was” when such-and-such occurred. But I can never fully recall what I was doing—the story and the truth, my story and others’, taking different turns, as memories do.

My notes however will mark this occasion. Mere moments before the earthquake—a 5.1, I learned later, though some reports have it lower, some higher—I contemplated the gnarled Crimean Linden (aka Caucasian lime) trees outside the Sylvia windows: “the singular tree trunk gives way to twisting off-shoots, craning like goosenecks, seeking southern sun and resisting it at the same time—its indecision and determination at odds but also key to its survival.”

---