Originally published by The Clifton Courier, July 7, 2021

Do you believe in signs?

I obviously don’t mean that in a literal sense. I generally tend to accept that most signs are telling me the truth when they’re warning me about electric fencing or overhead powerlines. Like, they’re just trying to help. What have they got to gain from lying to me, you know?

When I’m talking signs, I’m talking about the signals from the universe that you’re on the right track or you’re making a big mistake or that you should put it all on red.

I once had a dream where I kept repeating a bunch of numbers over and over to the point that, when I woke up, I could still recall those numbers. I figured it could possibly be my psychic subconscious doing me a solid and giving me a heads up about the winning lotto numbers. I mean, the fact that those numbers came to me so clearly surely had to mean something. When something comes to you in a dream, there has to be some reason for it, right? So I went out and bought a lotto ticket.

I didn’t win a dime.  

If nothing else, this sign from the universe that came to me in a dream was perhaps a sign from the universe that I shouldn’t be reading too much into signs from the universe.

I think choosing to read something into those “came to me in a dream” moments is what makes them so powerful. Like, if you’re looking for a sign to tell you that you need to change jobs/dump your partner/get a blunt fringe, then I think what you can learn from that is that, deep down, you probably really want to change jobs/dump your partner/get a blunt fringe and you’re desperate for some external, all-knowing force to justify your decision. 

But there’s something so intoxicating about the idea that some cosmic force is taking an interest in my life and is trying to communicate something to me. Part of this is because I can’t emotionally cope with the fact that everything that happens to us is all a cruel accident and part of it is because I’m a closet romantic but the biggest part is because I’m incredibly self-obsessed.

Usually, these signs come by way of streetlights. 

Sometimes when I pass a streetlight while out walking alone, one will turn off. Sometimes one will turn on. 

And, look, logic would tell me this was a sensor or self-timer situation. But that terrified, romantic and self-obsessed person in me likes to think it’s a signal from the universe. There’s usually no one else around when this happens. The streets are generally empty. Surely that light turning on or off is only doing so for me, right?

Maybe the light turned on because my last thought was actually a really, really good idea. Maybe the light turned off because cosmic forces are telling me to let go of the idea/person/hair style I was just thinking about. And sometimes, I take it as a vague sign that there’s something… more to ponder.

In Year Nine I played one of two slags in roller-skates in a scaled-back, reimagined production of Waiting for Godot. In this high school iteration of the classic play, the dead tree was replaced by a streetlight that turned on and then back off again without our characters noticing.

So I suppose I was primed to take notice of the streetlights and attempt to listen to what they’re trying to say. And, let’s be honest, the symbolism of a streetlight is too delicious to ignore. 

But then something happened for the first time the other day. 

I was walking along the footpath that runs past the creek/stormwater drain that keeps my neighbourhood from flooding. Usually it’s full of stinky wastewater with a system of gates and pipes regulating the flow. 

Just as I walked past the other day, the valve opened. All this stinky wastewater came gushing out at the exact second I passed it. And if you apply the same logic to this as you do my streetlight thing, you have to attach some kind of meaning to this too.

Unfortunately, the only message that comes to mind is that, perhaps, I just might be full of poo… in the proverbial sense.