Way back when in Lebanon, there was an American-born girl asking her mother to give her two braids instead of one. She was hoping that asking for two would mean sitting in her mother’s lap just a little while longer, staring out the window at their neighbors house. In Lebanon, far away from the cities, there are villages nestled into the cedar forests. There, everyone builds their own house, each family decides exactly what brick should go where; and the little girl had noticed that these neighbors had a particular affinity for birds. So it was that their rooftop was purposely built to mimic the branches of a tree, with each stoop stretching up and out, welcoming anything that may come; begging for good luck.
The second braid was almost complete when they heard the damning, territorial “hoo.” Her mother’s hands froze, surely just as excited to see the owl sitting on the neighbors rooftop as her daughter was. And there indeed it was, perched right above the evil eye that her neighbors had meticulously carved into the stones. A bright blue ward against all the danger in the world. A big orange-eyed owl sat right on their roof. The American girl’s smile cut through her face, excited to be meeting a new friend with such a calm voice; but behind her, the second braid had fallen loose, her mother’s hand clamped over her mouth as if she was trapping the fear inside herself.
A brief interlude on superstition: the owl as wisdom. The owl as Athena, goddess of strategy, of war. The owl as doom, as fear, as a white-faced prophet. The owl as a looking glass. The owl as a theory, a woman, a creation myth. The owl as metaphysics, a messenger, a sign. The owl as night, leyl, nýchta.
“Look Mama, an owl!” She says,
but she never gets a response.
Her mother silently finishes the second braid.
Right now in the city of Los Angeles, 17 years later, I sit in my bedroom in my family’s apartment. No bricks here, no cedars, only a window that faces the pale wall of another apartment building and reminders of monotony, the greatest creation in American history: sameness, the copy-paste tool. No blue-eyed wards here either, and nothing to ward from. Many things have changed since I was that child in Lebanon. My mother has stopped doing my hair, but I haven’t stopped wearing the two braids. I have a sister now who I can constantly hear through the thin walls, insistently blasting the same early 2000s emo I did when I was 18. And I’ve learned a lot about owls. You see, I’ve become a real American girl, science over feelings and all of that. Superstitions from back home blow into me like a bullet underwater.
Last night, there was an owl outside my window, though initially I had confused it for a body falling from the roof, shrieking as if it had seen a ghost. The walls of my room glowed eerily white; suffocated with all the posters of those same 2000s emo bands I had pierced into them 6 years ago. The owl felt closer than it usually is, its “hoo” shaking my bones like a rattlesnake. The sound was so holistic, all encompassing, there was no way to tell where it was coming from at all.
Most nights, the “hoo” is an echo. It comes through with a delay, the way thunder claps for the lightning only after it’s burned a hole into the ground. But these “hoo”s sang directly into my ear, not a second too late, like the lightning itself. I all but run to the window, scouring the windowsills and praying I see the familiar brown wings, pale face, and yellow eyes.
I pride myself on being so reasonable, so…western. I know that there’s no such thing as an evil eye; I know that showering at night isn’t going to bring ghosts into my house; I know that an owl is just an owl is just an owl is just an owl. So when I go to my window and find that I can’t see this owl anywhere, I can’t explain the cold shock that envelops me. I realize two things: firstly, the owl is choking. It’s once calming “hoo” coming in as a gurgle of something that should be so natural being wasted on something as mangled as a prophecy. Secondly, the owl is directly above me.
A brief callback to superstition: the most important thing to know about owls is that they are not vultures. They do not eat death. They do not rely on death. Not here at least, not in America.
Right now, in California, there is a Beiruti girl listening to her mother and sister argue over what time is too late to be listening to Panic! at the Disco, and thinking It’s just an Owl. It’s Just an Owl. It’s Just An Owl. But she knows that even the West has its superstitions.
In America, they would tell you to watch for when the vultures come, but where I’m from, when an owl sits on the roof of your house, someone inside is about to die.
Who? Who? Who?▲
