I was sitting on top of a mountain a few days ago.  Actually I was sitting in a car on a mountain pass, but it amounts to the same thing.  It was a very windy day and the temperature was just a little above freezing.  We had stopped to take pictures at the overlook, but the cold and wind made it uncomfortable to stay outside the car for long.  At some point I noticed a crow on the side of the road, he was searching for scraps that had been left by other tourists passing through.  After a few minutes, the crow took to the air and sailed over the edge of the overlook.  Then he just stopped in mid air.  The wind was so strong that the crow was not able to fly over the edge, he was just hanging there suspended in mid air.  He hung there several minutes, before he rose upward a few feet, then went sailing sideways and upward in almost a 90 degree angle to the direction he had been heading.  It was one of the strangest things I had ever seen.  Maybe it is an every day occurrence in The Great Smoky Mountains, but it was new to me.  There was just something about it that stuck with me.  Maybe it reminded me of myself just a bit.  I cannot go forward and I refuse to back up.  I am in limbo.  I struggle to push forward and gain no ground.  I fight to hold on but how long till I tire and slip.  If I slip, where will I end?  If I hold on and push forward long enough, will I ascend like the crow and be carried off to somewhere unknown?

Maybe it didn’t mean anything.  Possibly the crow was just enjoying the view as much as the rest of us.  Humans do have this knack to look for a signs and meaning in any, and everything.  Black cats crossing the roads are a bad omen.  Stepping on a crack could cause your mother to become paralyzed.  When a bad thing happens, we think we are being punished.  A good thing means we are being rewarded.  Even those of us who do not consider ourselves superstitious cross our fingers when waiting for test results.  People who do not consider themselves religious at times say “God help me” or similar.  Maybe there is no meaning to anything and we recoil from that fact.  It’s easier to feel you are being punished, than to think that there is no reason for what happens in life.  Could that be why we look for signs, omens, and portents?  Why we seek meaning in everything?  Are we trying to prove to ourselves that there is something else out there?  How scary would life be if we could no longer cross our fingers for that extra little bit of help.  What if we are just like that crow?  Are we just hanging over the precipice, waiting for the wind to lay or pick up, and having no control whatsoever over our fate.