Crossing Over, Looking Down

Crossing Over,  Looking Down

"In me thou seest the twilight of such day/ As after sunset fadeth in the west"

Wm. Shakespeare Sonnet 73 

Every time we drive across Big River Bridge my ninety-five year old mother looks out the window, down at the beach, glances seaward, and says, "I'm always surprised how small people look."  She pauses and then continues, "It really puts things in perspective."  She smiles at me, acknowledging the double entendre.

Usually, I nod and say, "Yes it does."  If I'm tired and cranky, I say, "You've already told me that."  It doesn't faze her.  Whether we're coming back from errands in Fort Bragg or lunch in Mendocino, she makes the same remarks.  She is trying to tell me something about old age and  death.  I haven't been listening.

It is the diminishment of her self that she sees in the tiny figures walking on the sand.  Old age is doing that to her, making her feel small.  When she alludes to perspective, to a human being set against sea and sky, she is telling me she knows she is close to the vanishing point and that it is okay.