I'm Adely Moan and this is The Slowdown.

I'm a big believer in omens, in signs, listening and watching and noticing what the world is

telling you.

I've wondered over an image for some time, trying to figure out what it meant, pondered

what the karmic implications of certain events might be. I have made myself nearly sick with worry

over what certain animals which cross my path mean when I'm in crisis, or even when I'm not in

crisis. I've said things to myself like, if the door is unlocked, that means this is meant to be.

If it is locked, something else will come true. I don't want you to think less of me,

but I can't help but believe in signs because life gives you no clues as to how it's going to go.

My stepfather, every time I bring up something like an omen or a symbol, he makes the joke,

I don't hang out with witches, to which I laugh and laugh because I'm not a witch, but I very

much would like to hang out with some. I was once out walking when we used to live in Kentucky,

very rural, and full of gorgeous meandering backcountry roads, and I saw a white cow just standing

in the middle of the road. It felt like it was an omen for sure, it was a beautiful cow,

and when I approached it trotted off to the side slowly and made its way back through a hole in

the fence, I discerned that this sign was about freedom and safety. I had just moved to Kentucky,

and I was full of doubts about how I felt about the place, but I never doubted how I felt about the

land itself. Seeing that beautiful white cow just standing there in the middle of the road

made me wonder about what it was to choose freedom and choose home. The cow went back home on

its own volition to its pasture. I began to wonder what it would be like to choose Kentucky as a

safe place for myself, a place that let me wander back and forth through the fence. Signs are always

what we make of them, aren't they? Maybe it's less about what the omen itself is, but instead

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