There's a coastal trail a short drive from home that switchbacks down from blufftops to a rocky shore overlooking the Pacific.
Once you reach the bottom, there's a goat trail that leads behind a large collection of boulders, marbles for giants, that balance precipitously. They form an overhang for the trail below.
I like to go fossil-hunting in the rocks just past those boulders, but I tend to scurry quickly past the rocks - although I've never seen them move, it feels like they could flatten me at any moment.
Years ago, I returned to the trail after many months away to find that, in fact, one of the larger boulders had rolled. It was a rare moment of catching an event I'd normally think of as happening in geologic time.
That's how I felt this morning - as if something momentous in another timescale had occurred before my eyes.
I ride my bike shortly after dawn on most mornings, and as such I've become acquainted with the people and birds who are out and active at that hour. I see dark-eyed juncos, California towhees, scrub jays, goldfinches, a flock of scaly-breasted munias (presumably escaped pet birds found in Asia that have formed a local flock), peafowl (another introduced exotic), red-tailed hawks and the occasional Cooper's hawk.
I also see and salute a peer my age walking her dog, a couple of distinguished Taiwanese businessmen, an endearingly spastic young jogger, and "Lady and the Tramp" - a sweet woman in her mid-70s who for years has taken her aging dog out for early morning walks by carrying him in her arms for several blocks.
This particular morning, dark clouds are gathered over the ocean, and a rain that was not in the weather app one day prior is predicted to hit in a couple of hours. I set out onto the streets with head and tail lights ablaze.
As I crest a hill on my ascent, I come across Lady sans Tramp. We've nodded to one another and exchanged the occasional friendly word over several years, so I slow down and begin the exchange:
Is your little dog is doing okay?
Unfortunately, no, he's not. He passed away.
I'm so sorry to hear that. I've always observed how tenderly you carried him on your walks every morning.
He was very old, and could no longer walk by himself these last few years.
I hope your grief lessens with time.
Thank you.
I don't know Lady beyond our glancing exchanges and head nods from my morning rides, but I speculated - what if she has no partner or family nearby? What if the Tramp was her main source of companionship?
This could be that seismic moment that alters her trajectory - when she went from happy to sad, from loved to alone.
It takes very little to trigger a sense of shared vulnerability with others these days.