A Murder Most Fortuitous
Three years ago, I moved to Salem - not the witch trial one, the other one - after fleeing San Francisco’s increasingly hostile rental market and increasingly friendly street crime. While most people worry about black cats crossing their paths in a town like this, I found myself preoccupied with another dark harbinger: crows.
They started appearing like clockwork during my daily errands. One perched on the Walgreens sign as I picked up my antidepressants. Another strutting confidently through the Safeway parking lot as I wrestled with a cart that seemed determined to reenact scenes from “The Exorcist.” A particularly judgmental specimen watched me try to parallel park outside my doctor’s office, cocking its head as if to say “Really? That’s as straight as you can get it?”
I’d learned years earlier that crows weren’t the doom-and-gloom messengers pop culture made them out to be. In many cultures, they’re considered sacred intermediaries between the physical and spiritual worlds. The Norse god Odin had two ravens, Huginn and Muninn, who flew around the world gathering information and whispering it in his ear. Which makes them basically the original Twitter, minus the toxic comment section.
Yesterday, an entire murder of crows descended on the field behind my house - more than I’d ever seen in one place. They covered the grass like an oil spill with feathers, cawing and strutting about importantly. I watched them through my kitchen window while stress-eating stale crackers and wondering if they were planning some sort of avian coup.
This morning, the day my first book was due to be published, I drew back the curtains to find my front lawn hosting what looked like a crow convention. They dotted the grass and driveways like gothic lawn ornaments, as if the universe had decided to throw me the world’s most ominous book launch party.
According to Native American folklore, crows are the keepers of the Sacred Law, carrying messages from the spirit world. In Celtic mythology, they’re associated with Morrighan, the goddess of war, fate, and death - though I prefer to focus on her lesser-known role as the goddess of writers and storytellers. The Japanese consider them symbols of transformation and rebirth, which feels particularly apt given my transition from rideshare driver to author.
I’d like to think these feathered prophets have been watching over me these past three years, keeping tabs on my progress as I transformed countless late-night rides and questionable life choices into something resembling literature. Though it’s equally possible they just appreciate my habit of dropping crumbs everywhere I go.
While I sit here watching them through my window, I think about all the messages they've carried to me over these years in Salem - outside Walgreens, through parking lots, on morning walks when I was ready to give up. They've watched me transform from another Bay Area refugee into whatever it is I am now: an author, I suppose, though the word still feels foreign in my mouth, like trying to pronounce a dish at a fancy restaurant. The crows lift off my lawn one by one, black wings against a grey sky, and I realize that maybe they weren't bringing messages at all. Maybe they were just making sure I kept showing up - to the page, to myself, to this strange life I've chosen. And really, isn't that the best omen of all?
