The New Normal

May they grow up in the New Normal

There’s a phrase much bandied about these days: “this is the new normal”; “When this is over, there will be a new normal.” But that begs the question: what IS normal? And when does/will the “old” normal change? As for my family, I venture to say that we are, emphatically, NOT normal by any regular measure. We are a quirky lot, musicians and actors and writers. 

But generally? If “normal” is an Ozzie and Harriet world, where Father Knows Best and we can Leave it to Beaver, then no, America has never really been normal like that. In the ‘60s it was “normal” to be a hippie (or look like one). What was the “normal” of the 1970s? Disco? and 1980s? How on earth did we ever think those shoulder pads were “normal”? The ‘90s and ‘00s went by in a blur (or maybe it was just that, with five kids, I wasn’t sleeping much) but I recall the past several decades as pretty selfish times in the USA, when we seemed to have lost sight of what’s important.

Which brings us to the present day. Do you remember life pre-isolation, carefree trips to Shop N Bag without looking like the hazmat-suited characters in E.T.? Now, we compulsively wash our hands and the groceries when they (the groceries) enter the house, and also the doorknobs we touched on the way to entering that house, and…well, you get the drift. 

With things so topsy-turvy, I think this is a golden opportunity to reshape reality going forward. I hereby declare 2021 the Year of The New Normal! 

 And what might this N.N. look like? 

Well, for one thing, we’ll have made our peace with queuing up, with waiting our turn. 

We’ll be conscious of others, in a whole new way. We’ll pray for each other in tough times, and rejoice at good news about each other when it comes. In other words: we’ll finally act like a loving family. 

When we’re at last able to stroll around freely, we’ll cherish our planet Earth, and do what we can to keep it clean. 

We’ll stay home when we feel sick, and give others grace when they do the same. 

We’ll stop taking for granted restaurant dinners, shopping at the mall, concerts, plays, and ball games. Going to the beach. Hugging our friends. 

We’ll stop taking for granted: touching our faces. 

We’ll realize at last that we’ve been taking way too much for granted. 

I pray that the New Normal will not involve heightened suspicion or fear or hate or division. Haven’t we all had enough of this? 

May the New Normal provide a safety net for our brothers and sisters in need, because we’ve learned what need feels like. 

May the New Normal usher in a time of kindness and caring, across the board.

And after we’ve experienced this New Normal for a while, may we, and our children, forget that things were ever any different. 

 I can’t wait for the New Normal.