Over the span of my lifetime, I’ve felt a few earthquakes. The most dramatic in my memory occurred when we were visiting Japan. We were at our daughter’s home. At the time she and her family lived in Misawa in Aomori Prefecture in the northernmost part of Japan’s main island, Honshu. I can’t remember the exact details, but I think that quake was 5.4 on the Richter scale. It was enough to make dishes rattle in the cupboards and pictures swing on the walls. When I was a child, the 1959 Hebgen Lake earthquake at Yellowstone National Park was a 7.5 magnitude quake. We lived about 60 miles away from the epicenter, but that quake happened at night. I have a vague memory of waking to feel something, but what I remember most is all of the activity that happened after the earthquake. I’ve felt multiple quakes in Costa Rica. The ones that occurred when I was there were relatively small. I think one was around 4 on the Richter scale, but don’t remember the details. No serious damage occurred where I was. It was just a unique experience. It doesn’t take an earthquake to set off car alarms in San Jose, but I think a few went off when the ground shook.

However, I didn’t actually feel the seismic activity that occurred in the Seattle area last week. According to seismologist Jackie Caplan-Auerbach, a geology professor at Western Washington University, on the evenings of July 22 and 23 at nearly the same time, small vibrations that measured 2.3 magnitude occurred. The center of the seismic activity centered at Lumen Field. The source of the vibrations was either the gathering of the sold-out crowd of 140.000 fans or the huge sound system for the event or both. Taylor Swift performed “Shake it Off” during the concert. It was enough to be measured by seismological equipment installed to warn Seattle residents of earthquakes. It broke the record, set in 2011 when fans celebrated Marshawn Lynch’s touchdown during a games against the New Orleans Saints. That quake only measured 2.0, .3 less than the two Taylor Swift events.

I wasn’t at either concert. Quite frankly, I hadn’t paid enough attention to which nights Swift was performing in Seattle. I saw a post on Facebook about a Portland, Oregon performance that one of my friends attended. I’m unlikely to be seen at any sold-out concert.

Of course our lives are affected by all kinds of forces that we don’t see or feel. I’m pretty sure that the shaking of fans and a huge sound system had some effects on those who were closer to the event. I have a brother who is a percussionist and who played in several rock bands earlier in his life. He is two years younger than I. He wears hearing aids. So far, I haven’t had to have them. I blame all of that loud music for his hearing loss, but I don’t know that my observations have been confirmed by medical experts. I do know that there are documented cases of hearing loss caused by loud music.

Earthquakes aside, which are never really aside for us because we live in earthquake-prone territory and paying attention to them is important because they could be indicators of volcanic activity. Since we can see Mount Baker, considered to be an active volcano, from our son’s farm, we should pay some attention to earthquakes. Nonetheless, earthquakes aside, I am learning about another natural phenomenon of which I had been previously unaware. Living near the ocean and paying attention to the rising and falling of the tides has taught me to pay attention to the phases of the moon. I’ve always paid some attention to the moon. I like to look at the night sky. The next full moon will be Tuesday, the first day of our retirement from our current position. August gets two full moons this year with one on the first and the other on there 31st. Twice each month (and three times this August), the variation between high tide and low tide is the greatest. These tides, called spring tides, happen at the full moon and at the new moon. During the quarter moon phases, the gravitational forces of the Sun and Moon are at their minimum, producing smaller ranges of tidal highs and lows known as neap tides.

When we have spring tides around here the reversal in the flow direction of Tenant Creek is at its greatest. Since we walk to the beach most days and we cross a bridge over Tenant Creek on our way, we pay attention to which direction the creek is flowing about a half mile from where it empties during low tide and takes water from the bay during high tide.

I guess I knew somewhere in the back of my mind about the relationship between the phases of the moon and the rising and falling of tides, but that information didn’t register as I’ve lived most of my life a thousand or more miles from an ocean. All of that has changed now that we’ve moved near the seashore.

You might not be able to teach an old dog new tricks, but an old guy can learn to pay attention to things he used to ignore. In addition, our house has skylights in the kitchen and when the sky is clear, I really notice the difference in the amount of light in the house at night during the full moon. I still know how to look up the phases of the moon and I also have a tide calendar available to check the tides, but I’m learning to sense them from the experience of living in this place and am becoming less dependent upon consulting calendars and charts to know what is happening. Since we get a fair number of overcast days and nights, I don’t need to see the moon to know its phase because I can observe the tides and the marks of seaweed on the beach indicating the high tide mark to judge the phase of the moon.

Apparently, however, it takes a quake bigger than 2.3 magnitude to get my attention.