{ Disclaimer }

I’m not trying to dramatize anything. I’m not trying to minimize anything. I’m not here to talk about which natural disasters were the most horrific and which ones were less catastrophic.

{ Purpose }

I’m doing this blog post for one main reason: I wanted to provide a place where we could have a discussion and some idea-sharing on documenting stuff that shakes us up a bit. Most of you reading this are documenters of life. Most of you have an interest in documenting real life – all of life. Not just birthday parties and vacations and the first day of school.

{ Context }

Yesterday there was yet another earthquake. This time in Virginia, but several other states felt the trembling. Thankfully there wasn’t a mass amount of damage and disaster. But it still affected many people in some way. So this got me thinking – and probably a lot of you, too – about how we document things like this while they’re fresh in our minds.

{ The Question }

How do we document disaster or things that otherwise shake us up a bit?

{ The Answer }

Of course everyone should do what feels right to them, given the circumstances. Several readers sent me stories and pictures and ideas from their own experiences, including yesterday’s earthquake and other recent natural disasters. This is what I’m sharing today, in hopes that you find some inspiration to continue documenting life … even when life throws you a something that is unsettling or scary or even tragic.

And NO — I’m not saying that you should document every hard part of life. For most people, that hardly seems comfortable or appropriate. But I bet most of us can say that if we could go back and document something “hard” in our lifetime, we would. My hand is up on this for sure.

{ Your feedback + Ideas }

Here we go … Everything else in this post is from your fellow readers.

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{ Take a picture }

Obvious, right? But sometimes when crazy things happen, it’s easy to overlook the simple action of visually documenting what happened (again – IF it feels appropriate). Mary experienced a tragedy when a tornado ripped through her college town and destroyed the sorority house where she had so many memories. To this day, she is so grateful to have saved the blog posts of written thoughts and pictures surrounding the disaster. Mary said, “I don’t think I would have captured all these memories unless this disaster happened, and since I had graduated college less than a year after this happened they were still fresh in my mind.”

Here are a collection of photos taken by Jacque who photographed the surroundings during their evacuation from their cabin in Alpine, Arizona during this Summer’s wildfires.

And this picture was taken just on Saturday by Amanda in Okanogan, Washington – an area prone to wildfire.

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{ Write it Down }

Again – this seems obvious but is often overlooked while the memory is still fresh. Take a minute to write down your personal experience with what has happened. It doesn’t have to be a novel or even a full paragraph. Just jot down what happened, how you experienced it, how you felt, and maybe even what it prompted you to think about. This can be in your journal, on a note card, a napkin, wherever. Many of my readers emailed me excerpts of their own written memories.

Here is what Sherri in Colonia Heights, VA wrote: “Shaken and UnNerved – I just drove back from lunch, opened my door when Cheryl, my best friend called me on my cell.  As we were chatting away I noticed my car started to shake, I glanced up and saw my car door moving too. Then the bushes were swaying as if a strong wind was shaking them.  I glanced up and saw the utility pool swaying back and forth. My friend heard me say I think we are having an earthquake and then I hung up on her.  I then noticed people from the office next door coming out of the building and lastly the only person in my office coming out looking shocked.  Thankfully there were no injuries or damages. I kept getting chill bumps all afternoon and later experienced an aftershock that evening.  I again sat in shock before realizing that the earth was shaking again.  Terra firma no more!”

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{ Scrapbook the Events }

Whatever your experience was when something struck, including this in your scrapbooks adds value, meaning, and depth to the story you’re telling and the legacy you’re leaving. Cindy in Brisbane, Australia writes: “When the floods hit Brisbane in January this year, I wanted to document the experience in my Project Life album. Even though we weren’t personally affected, people we knew were. I found an article online that summarised events on the day the floorwaters hit Brisbane and suburbs affected. Our family wanted to see what was happening first hand so we went to a park near the Brisbane River along with many other residents where we could see the floodwaters rising. I also found a few photos online of the flood and included them to record the event for the future – this is living history.”

This other layout is from Shirlee who said: “I documented our journey through Hurricane Ike in 2009. Because some of the most awesome pictures were from satellites, I raided the local news websites for some pictures that I couldn’t capture. I used my actual journal entries to tell the story one the page, basically one from the start and one from the end to tie it all together. This was a fun and informative way to tell the story. Template used was Jessica Sprague.”

And this layout is by Fiona in Christchruch, New Zealand.

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{ The Internet is a Resource }

Remember that you can usually get pretty remarkable photos, outlined details, and an overview of events from the Internet. This page is another one by Fiona in Christchurch, New Zealand who said, “I took a screen shot of the website that we all check to see where the quakes were and how big they are.”

Rachel in Roanoke, Virginia is including this Seismic image from Virginia Tech of yesterday’s quake:

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{ Include top news stories in Project Life }

Megan in Broomfield, Colorado tries to include big news stories in her album about once a month. She says, “I locate a news article with a corresponding photograph then create a new blank 4×6 template in Photoshop and paste the either the photograph or the article using the text tool, making sure I spell-check prior to pasting in the template. Then I make adjustments accordingly, if I want to use either a 4×6 template or the 3×4 journaling card dimensions.”

You’ll notice that Megan tries to strike a balance between not-so-happy news, and happy news.

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{ Document the Process }

Oftentimes with natural disasters occur, there is re-building to happen. Many find that documenting the process of recovery is very therapeutic. Donna in Minot, North Dakota wrote: “I have been using just a simple two-up album from Hobby Lobby to document the flood situation here in Minot. I started it with the Before pictures of my home then the flood water and outside damage, then the inside as I found it on July 19 and then the debris and the clean up process and then the stripped down version of studs and roof.  It has been a very difficult time here, but I found documenting and journaling about it has helped me deal with the devastation and the emotions that go with it.  The next set of pictures will be of the FEMA trailer that will give me some stability until I begin to rebuild next year.”

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{ Focus on the Positive }

Finoa in Sydney, Australia writes: “When the earthquakes hit Christchurch, New Zealand in 2010 and 2011, we were greatly concerned for friends of ours living in that city. My journaling talked about that and the pictures I included were of happy times we had in that city in previous years.”

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{ Include your Communication }

When scary things happen, it is human nature to reach out to others and make sure that they’re okay. It’s also natural for many of us to communicate with friends, family, colleagues about the events that transpired. Karen in New Zealand wrote, “I am using Project Life and when the devastating earthquake struck Christchurch in February this year I added a section of the newspaper from the following day into my album. I also added an email from my penfriend in England and my reply to her. Before adding the email to my album I attached a photo (from the web) of the quake.”

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{ Photograph your Communication }

Just taking that a step further … When I first heard the news of Virginia’s quake yesterday, of course I was concerned because my family is in that area. After failed attempts to reach any family members with all the phone lines down, my concern verged on being potential freak-out mode until I started hearing reports that it wasn’t really major. Once I reached my family via text and knew they were alright, there was no panic or drama. Just making sure everything was okay. A screenshot would work just fine (on an iPhone, you push the top button and the bottom button at the same time to get a screen capture). But I took a picture of my actual phone and the text conversation with my mom.

Kristin writes: “March 11, I awoke to find that a major earthquake had happened in Japan where my brother lives. While trying to get ahold of my brother, I quickly snapped a pic of cnn.com for my Project Life (possibly as a distraction to the hysteria going thru my mind?). Also photographed was the moment I got ahold of my brother on Skype, such a relief. SO happy to have both of these moments documented for my children to look back on when they are older.”

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{ Document your Contribution }

If you’re in a situation where you’re able to help others who need assistance during a difficult time, take a moment to write about or share how you were able to contribute and reach out. From Julie in Nelson, New Zealand: “When Christchurch suffered its fatal earthquake in February this year, a generous local courier advertised for donations which he would personally deliver to those affected four hours’ drive south. So my daughters and I gathered up all the new and not-so-new girls’ clothes, shoes, toys, and treats we could find in our home and sent our box south, with the attached note written by my Miss 6. We included this in our family Project Life album. Helping others in this small way definitely helped my girls deal with the terrifying pictures and headlines dominating the news here in New Zealand at that time.”

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{ Have a Sense of Humor }

I love this. Ashley wrote: “Luckily, no one was hurt and there was minimal damage in our area, so our office had a little bit of fun with it. Currently, there are 4 of us that are pregnant, so we made these little blurbs and took some pictures!”

Even if you were not deeply affected by a local disaster (or potential disaster), these things still affect us and it’s all part of history. The world’s history, and your own personal history.

I’ll leave you with this from Laurel in Norfolk, Virginia: “The house swayed pretty good for a few seconds. The dogs went bananas, but the kids didn’t seem to mind.”

Clearly they didn’t mind a bit! And one day, they will totally love these pictures of themselves during their first earthquake.  : )

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May you each be protected and blessed during difficult, disastrous, and dangerous times. And may you find value and worth in documenting life … no matter what happens. I say it a lot and I’ll say it again: When we take the time to document life, we are more keenly aware of how blessed we really are.

PS – Thank you so much to all those who contributed their experiences, stories, pictures, and tips. You’ve really inspired us today.