Dead Owl on the Highway

December 28, 2008

I was in my era of not believing in omens. It was a time when I didn’t allow myself to see synchronicities, or if I did see them, I refused to give them any credence.

On a long stretch of highway somewhere in eastern Washington, the hills dusted with snow, the road running straight into a white-and-gray future, I passed a barn owl that had been struck by a car sometime in the dark of early morning. It lay breast-up on the shoulder. Its head was tipped back as if it watched me, though it had been lifeless for hours. As I sped by, the wind of my motion lifted its primaries, like it wanted to take flight again. I watched the movement of its feathers in my side-view mirror. Headed to Utah, to an internship where I would work with birds, I knew it was a sign, though I didn’t want to know it.

Six months later, I would tattoo a barn owl on the back of my neck

.

One year and three days later, everything about my life would change.