What do bird poo and sticky balsamic glaze have to do with good luck in 2023?
Splat!
It was wet, green, and suddenly splashed across my living room floor.
‘Oh my god!’ I said.
My youngest son looked over his shoulder at me and then followed my gaze to the floor, his face screwing up in horror, ‘Yuck! What is that?’
‘Bird poo,’ I said, still not quite believing what I was seeing.
After a few seconds of processing, I resigned myself to the cleaning-up job ahead. As I knelt on the floor, I considered the partially open sliding door that had allowed this uninvited mess to enter. The opening was around 15cm wide. Enough to let air flow into the room (which was my intention) but a very small target for falling excrement, surely. What are the odds?
Seriously.
If you think about it, many factors had to combine for this shitty (pun intended) incident to occur: bird flight path, bird speed, wind speed and direction, consistency and weight of the projectile, and timing (of the pooping bird, and me having the door open).
So, does this mean that 2022 is finishing with one final stroke of bad luck? Or is it incredibly good luck? A sign of brighter times ahead, perhaps?
Nah. My inner cynic told me this was just one random incident in a bevy of disconnected, random incidents that happened across the world at the same time. But I couldn’t help wondering.
After I finished cleaning, and with these thoughts still meandering around my mind, I did what any sane person would do, and Googled, ‘what does it mean if bird poo lands in your house through an open door’. One result was, ‘Bird Poop Meaning in Vedic Astrology: Does it Bring Good Luck?’ Bingo! Stuff science, let’s see what ancient astrology has to say about the matter. The article explained several reasons why a bird pooping on a person, and specifically on their head, may bring good luck. The problem was, a bird pooped on my floor and not on my head.
Sigh.
Taking that example though, having bird poo on your head is never a good thing — it’s a major inconvenience, and disgusting. The good luck theory essentially says, oh you have stinky, wet, germ-ridden stuff in your hair but don’t worry, you’re going to win the lottery next week.
Well, now I don’t feel so bad!
This made me think about other so-called signs of good luck that I’ve heard about over the years: ‘if you see a penny, pick it up…’ or if you see a ladybug or wear your clothes inside out, you’ll have good luck. Maybe promises of good luck simply provide comfort and hope when we need them.
Several recent conversations with friends and family have lamented how bad 2022 has been for so many people (this year has served me much greater traumas than bird poo as well). I was at an end-of-year lunch with some work colleagues last week as one of them proposed a toast to ‘f**k off, 2022’. Our glasses chinked and several voices replied, ‘yes! Here’s to 2023!’
A fresh start.
But will it be a fresh start? What does one tick of the clock, or a new page on the calendar have to do with a change in luck? Can we really trade all the bad events of this year for good fortune next year?
As you and I keep trying to figure out what we think about all this, one of our greatest challenges (and perhaps, advantages) is that we’re unable to see our future. Living with uncertainty is a part of human existence that we can’t escape. And life is good at giving us little reminders that we never know what’s just around the corner…
Later on the same day of the bird poo incident, I was in the bathroom when I heard something heavy hit the ground in the kitchen. I had no idea what it was, but it sounded bad! I went out to investigate and found my son standing on tippy-toes near the pantry, frozen in shock. There was a smashed bottle with shards of glass and brown, sticky balsamic glaze spread all over the floor. I nearly cried as I imagined my light grey tile grout being permanently stained a deep brown colour. I carefully guided my little boy out of the kitchen so he didn’t cut his feet on the broken glass and began cleaning. This mess was slightly more sanitary than the earlier one, but still tedious. And as I cleaned, I wondered if this meant I was incredibly lucky, or unlucky. Or if it was just another random incident.
Honestly, I don’t know if misfortune can lead to good luck, but I do know I can choose hope as my response when bad things happen (as well as cleaning up the messes).
Life often feels big and overwhelming. Some days, I just want to stay in bed so I can avoid it all. But I continue getting out of bed because I still have hope. I need to keep going for myself and my kids and all the joyful moments that are yet to come. I know there will be bad moments, but I also want to find out what the good ones will be.
Hope is my insurance policy for when the shit hits the fan (or the floor) in 2023.
And I’ve bought a lottery ticket for Saturday night too, just in case.
