Some people embraced the New Normal early on. Others railed at it. Still others pointed out that what is now normal is really weird. Which got me thinking that this may always have been so. Darwin observed that species adapt to survive. Under pressure, some humans adapt more easily than others. But was the old normal really so ‘normal?’ It may have been the routine or the convention, but viewed with de-scaled eyes was normal not a little bit weird?

I am reminded of my first visit to Belfast in December of 1980. The Hunger Strikes were happening. There were armoured military vehicles patrolling streets. An armed squaddie in full combat dress walked the shopping precinct. If you wanted to park your car in a Control Zone you needed to leave someone in it to prove that there was no bomb threat. During the Christmas sales a tightly permed elderly lady dressed in a twinset frisked me before I could enter Woolworths to buy a teapot. She ran a metal detector over my then boyfriend. The Europa hotel was behind metal hoarding, fending off the next bombing.

All of that was normal for residents of Northern Ireland during the 1980s when I vistited. But how weird does it sound to you? After thirty years of living with an eye and an ear for potential threat, how weird must it have felt to see the gradual dismantling of the military presence stand down. There goes the fortified police station in the border town. Up go a block of flats in its place. Even though that happened in 2013, nearly fifteen years after the Belfast Treaty was signed.

So, here we are in these chaotic times. Chaos is our new normal.

The world is on fire

and you are wondering what 
to cook for dinner.
But the fire is faraway,
even as the ash
drifts ever nearer, nearer.
But not close enough
to scorch or singe your lawn.
Still, you know your world
is on fire, but dinner needs
making, the children
have homework for tomorrow.
You can learn to live
with smoke, rubble and embers.
The house is okay,
though dinner's served a little
late on broken plates.

Copyright © Bee Smith 2020. All rights reserved

Featured image Photo by Jeremy Perkins on Unsplash