Make Your Own Omens

On our wedding night, my husband and I drove off from the reception in our little rental car. We were on a very dark, winding road in the Berkshires.

Suddenly, my husband slammed on the brakes.

Ahead of us, in the headlights’ glare, was a gigantic white owl – it must have been three feet tall – standing over the dried meat of some road kill.

That yellow-eyed bird stared at us and we stared back. Then, it silently unfolded its massive wings and swooped away over the roof of our car.

My husband and I sat there stunned, until he managed to stammer, “Umm … let’s call that a good omen.”

Yes. Let’s.

I am reminded of that now, in spring, when the world is bursting with new life, but not all of that life makes it. Judging from the sidewalks beneath the trees in our neighborhood, it has been raining broken birds’ eggs and broken baby birds.

And just the other day, as I came out our back door, one of the air-conditioning units began making a bad, banging sound, like something was knocking around in there. I peered in carefully, in case whatever was in there got tossed out suddenly by the blades. At first, I thought what I saw was a twig with some leaves on it. No problem.

Then it did get tossed aside by the blades. And it wasn’t a twig. It was the now-headless body of an anole lizard, one of those little harmless guys that live in Houston yards and breed like rabbits in the spring.

Kind of hard to think of a positive spin for that one.

Let’s just say it's not an omen of any kind, shall we?