Normality. The way each one of us chooses to live our life. That's what's normal. "I just want things to go back to normal…" I hear people say after some kind of a stressful time or crisis. When I worked at the battered women's shelter, I would hear that, and I would say, "No such thing as normal anymore. You need a new normal now." The whole point was to get them to change what they were accepting as normal – being abused – and find a different way of living that didn't include getting yelled at or being beaten in cycles. But many of them did go back to it, because that's what was normal for them. That's what they knew and were comfortable living with. Changes the definition of comfortable a bit, doesn't it? But as has been said time and again, we are creatures of habit.
My husband and I took the dog for a walk the other night around the neighborhood. It was garbage day eve, and I was looking for old broom or mop handles to use in an art project. I found one, and he ended up carrying it as we wound through the city streets. It was a nice, end-of-summer evening. People were out enjoying one of the remaining warm nights of the year, cooking out, kids playing in the streets, families out on bikes. It was nice. Pleasant. Until, as we approached a house on a corner, we overheard a young scraggly-haired blonde woman sitting out on a back step yelling at a thin young man standing on the sidewalk. I'm not exactly sure what she said, but I caught: "…this fucking family…you think you know…fucking…I don’t care…" The man turned and stormed away, followed by another young woman, who may have just been plump, but to me looked early-pregnant plump. A child, maybe six or seven years old with matching scraggly blonde hair, stood in front of Cussing Girl, looking up at her as the rant issued forth. Cussing Girl, I noticed as we got closer, was also talking with someone on a cordless phone.
We kept walking, not breaking our pace, and approached just as the young man turned and walked off. The little blonde-headed girl came and stood at the sidewalk's edge as we passed. I glanced at Cussing Girl. She was a teenager, at most. No doubt somewhere in that 14-to-16-year range. Her voice was one of terse complaint as she continued talking into the phone. Little Blondie looked up at me as we passed, smiled and said, "Hi." I smiled and said hello back to her. She looked happily at the dog, and seemed suddenly oblivious to the angry actions surrounding her. She could, because this is what was normal for her. And not yet being directly involved in the action (though there is no doubt that someday it will be her playing the Cussing Girl role), she could tune it out.
In the few steps it took us to pass Cussing Girl on stoop, Angry Young Man, not more than three or four heated strides in front of us, turned on his heels and began to walk back. Apparently, he wasn't done. He passed just beside me and the dog. Oblivious to us. His jaw set tightly, his eyes drilled on his target. He wore thick, black-rimmed glasses that matched his black, bowl-cut hair. (Were either of those really in style anymore? His normal, not mine.) I could see the muscle in his tawny body twitch with tense, violent suppression as he went back for round two (or was it maybe even three or four or ad nauseam?). I don't know what went on back there, because I didn't turn around to look.
Ahead of us, at the corner, stood Plump(Pregnant) Woman. She had short blonde hair. I thought for a moment about the relationship between them all – maybe the blondes were all sisters? Maybe Angry Young Man was a brother of Cussing Girl? Or the boyfriend of Plump(Pregnant) Woman? I let the thoughts quickly pass as I let go of wanting to care. Mind you, I had my beating a short time back from the neighbor girl chasing the dog (See "On a Cool Evening with the Windows Open"), and I was learning to not get involved, from the inside right on out. Plump(Pregnant) Woman looked at our dog, then to me as we approached her.
"What kind of dog is that?" she chirped with a smile.
Are you serious? I thought. Angry Young Man is going after Cussing Girl with Little Blondie standing right there watching the whole thing (not to mention the several children playing out in the yard across the street), and you can totally ignore that and cheerfully strike up a conversation with strangers walking past?
Normal. All that was surrounding her in that moment was her normal life. Not my normal. Her normal. I didn't need to make it mine.
I smile at her. "He's a mutt."
"Ohhh, he's so cute," she adds as we keep walking by.
I still don't look back, even when we turn the corner and I could easily just shift my gaze a bit to the side. And I'm proud of myself for not getting involved in other people's normal and thinking that their normal has to match my normal in any way. Although, I guess I do get involved by not getting involved, and I play my own role in the scene of their normal life: Woman with Dog who says hello; Man with Yellow Stick.
