Where Is Normal Life?

How do we return to it?

I used to do a lot of my writing in coffee shops. It’s hard to explain, but the sounds of an espresso machine and lots of people talking is a lovely comfort zone for authors, a kind of white noise for creativity.

I also used to shop on a Saturday, walking around at ease through the small stores, stopping for lunch in a nearby bistro, and ordering a panini. Usually, I had a mystery book with me to read, or I’d just watch the people passing by and let my thoughts wander about.

Even going to work was kind of peaceful. I had to take a train into Boston and then a bus ride to the company. On the train, I’d write or lean back and look out the window as we rolled through towns and villages. The route passed by meadows and groves of trees. On those rides, I was aware of the passage of the seasons. If it was snowing or raining, I felt a sense of being in a cocoon inside the coach.

I remember taking journeys, driving cross country. This country is vast and beautiful beyond measure in its natural state. Stopping at a diner in Roswell. Stepping out into the middle of the Painted Desert. Having a margarita outside an old hotel in Laguna Beach. A thousand other things.

There were also the frequent journeys overseas, the lovely freedom of traveling, especially to England where I either explored monastery ruins and castles or went to literary festivals on the border of Wales.

All of this was my normal life.

Our Changing Reality

None of those things I’ve described are in my life now. Everything has changed. So has it for us all. We never dreamed our lives could be so altered, except in fiction. But it has happened.

Thoughts fill my mind of what I accepted as my life, a life I loved just the way it was. I know absolutely we will not return to the way things were before.

Not because the world is in chaos — though it appears to be — because chaos never triumphs over our capacity and ability and passion to thrive again.

But because too much has changed in our awareness. We know why our lives have been altered by the pandemic, by climate change, by the direct impact of racism in ways unseen before. We also know how people — ourselves included — may or may not face their fears. We know how swiftly anger rises when people feel bewildered and challenged by reality.

What Can We Do?

A pandora’s box has been opened. We cannot close it up and expect the world to be the same as the one we used to think we knew — that is, the one we used to perceive.

This means we have new consequences arising from our choices and new ways of seeing. Even if old routines and rituals in our day-to-day life can return, we will encounter them differently. The “normal” we were so accustomed to is gone. We are changed. The world is not the same.

Our mission now is to allow awareness of this to bring a higher frequency into our lives, greater harmony, and cooperation, and tolerance and love, than ever existed before for us.

We do not need to return to what was. We are free to create a new earth where we can indeed thrive, together.

Now’s our chance.

Regina Clarke is a writer of mystery, fantasy, and science fiction. She has lived on all three coasts and in England but has found her true home in the ancient landscape of the Hudson River Valley. The Shawangunk Mountains she can see as she writes are part of the Appalachians, the oldest on earth. She’s on Twitter @ReginaClarke1 and is the author of Hidden in Stone and Guardians of the Field. Her website blog frequently explores the ideas of hope and inspiration.