Reading Signs

I don't believe in fate, destiny or divine signs. I don't believe that our lives are predetermined and I don't believe that we get forewarnings of coming events.

I do believe that we can foretell potential situations on a subconscious level, meaning that we pick up on clues of what may logically happen. It is called experience. That 'feeling of foreboding' you get can come from your subconscious brain assembling a projection based on what it has learned from similar experiences.

Ok. Don't bother reading that again. Enough head-babble.

How about a few fluffy experiences on the subject of signs?

The first experience I'll reference was when Michele and I were walking Gus. He was our big, friendly, huggable dog. I'll describe him more sometime. Anyway, we were walking Gus on leash down a strip of road near our old cottage. We would walk him on the shoulder of the road, down one stretch and back up the other. The object was for him to take a dump, and he usually cooperated.

On this walk he didn't dump on the first stretch. We walked back up the other stretch, stepping slower and slower as we neared its end. We didn't want to make the circuit again, and we were sure he needed to relieve himself.

At the very end of the back stretch, which was through a swamp, he hunkered down and did his business. While we were waiting for him to finish, I noticed a 'Private Property' poster, and pointed to it, saying, "I guess he was waiting for a sign."

Michele chuckled a little, more at the lameness of my remark than at its smallish humor. Wives are kind that way.

I remembered this forgettable event when I saw this picture Michele took of a great blue heron. I remembered because it is kinda-sorta linked to another sign experience.

This time Gus and I were walking down that same stretch of lonely road. We were by ourselves. It was early morning and there was a heavy fog rising tree-top level from the swamp. It was quiet and dim and damp.

We both froze in surprise as a great blue heron flew directly toward us, winging slowly out of the fog, not fifteen feet off the ground. What a wide-winged sight that bird was! The setting felt prehistoric. I wondered, in that brief moment of sighting, what a native American would have made of this vision five hundred years ago...what kind of sign would this special meeting offer?

Then the startled bird croaked out an ancient call and crapped. A cup of white waste exited the beast and angled down like a drop from a forest-fire-fighting plane. It splattered behind us on the asphalt in a stinking streak of milk-paint excrement...and both Gus and I had watched with open mouths.

A sign? What would the native American have made of that? Would he have taken it seriously, or made obvious, lame puns?

Well, I didn't take it as a sign. I instead registered that rare experience in my mental 'lessons to remember' file. It isn't likely to happen again, but if it does, I hope my subconscious recognizes the clues and rushes the following messages to my body: "Move it, feet!  Mouth, shut the heck up!  Watch out, this one might be a better shot!"

And with that, I'll sign off.