Normal Is As Normal Does

Normal Is As Normal Does

Yesterday, Kim and I decided at noon to go to see a movie at 1:50 in the afternoon. That’s the sort of thing we might have done two years ago on a Saturday while living in Manhattan. But yesterday was Thursday and we are still living under a COVID cloud. So, to begin with, we are retired and do not have jobs that keep us occupied Monday through Friday. We are at a place in life when even when we have things to do, we can largely do them when and where we please. Yesterday I saw a House Hunters show that showed a couple of teachers who are teaching online and have moved from Manhattan to Mexico City to take advantage of a lower cost of living and what they consider a more commodious lifestyle. If they are teaching asynchronously, they too could theoretically go to a movie (albeit likely in Spanish) in the middle of a Thursday. So, I’m not so sure being retired is a big part of the new freedom we exercised yesterday. Mostly, what’s different is that we seem less overwhelmed by COVID than we have over the past two years. We did walk in and out of the theater with our masks on, but sat comfortably in our big cushy lounger seats with no one within 20 feet of us without our masks on. We ate popcorn and sipped beverages. It all felt pretty normal.

I have been a movie aficionado for a long time. When I say on my Holiday card that my Christmas list has motorcycles and mulch on it, in years gone by I would have included a third “m” for movies on that list. For the past two years, I have stated quite boldly that I did not miss going to the movies and that I doubted that I would revert to being a regular movie-goer. I have said that movie theaters may be dodo birds (along with stadiums) of the future, and that COVID simply put the final nail in a coffin that started to get built when On Demand and Streaming came into vogue in a way that Blockbuster Video just couldn’t achieve. I have an 83” Samsung that makes me say that I am happy watching movies as they are released in the comfort of my own home. I have even gone so far as to buy a popcorn machine and what seems like a lifetime supply of movie theater too support that habit. Since the argument that we miss something with big action movies if they are not seen on the big screen, I should note that these are not my favorite movies anyway. I made sure to see Dune, but I did it at home since it wasn’t blocked for streaming the way Disney and a few other film producers have done. When son Thomas was here and No Time to Die, the latest James Bond filmwas coming out, we went to the theater. And when Disney released The Last Duel recently, the story of Sir Jean de Carouges played by Matt Damon, we went to the theater as an “event” to see the new release. Neither struck me as a statement on COVID, but more a special exception.

But yesterday we went through the list of available movies playing at the Angelica in Carmel Mountain (what was our theater of choice and is now our only theater, it seems). We were making the decision to go to the movies and then deciding what to see, and that seems like a very relevant change to our newly adopted lifestyle and maybe my openly stated post-pandemic philosophy. We wanted something to do and going to the movies had returned to our list of possibilities. We are tired of just having going to the cactus nursery as our only activity choice for a casual afternoon. We chose an obscure film called Spencer, a story about a final royal country weekend taken by Princess Diana. It was a perfectly OK film, but not one that will linger in my memory. It was nothing more than a nice way to spend an otherwise noncommittal afternoon.

Today I have read an article that discusses the idea that it may be time now…finally…to put COVID into perspective in our lives. It quoted a physician who said he will still wear masks at the supermarket and on planes, but will otherwise go about his life in a close version of what he would have pre-COVID. The data is on the cusp of suggesting that COVID, while not put asunder (as it may never be), has moved into a place in the panoply of infectious diseases like seasonal flu where those most vulnerable, like those who are very old or very immunity-compromised, need to be ever-vigilant, but that the rest of us that are more or less healthy, can go about the lives we used to live. I have mixed feelings about that. I am still hearing about surges in COVID infections in places like North Dakota and Germany and the last thing any of us who have been careful for two years wants to do is to get lax as we approach the finish line. We do not want to be Henry Nicholas John Gunther, the last soldier killed in WWI, shot one minute before the Armistice took effect.

Normal is a moveable feast, it is always changing with regard to lifestyle. There are any number of influences that alter our sense of normality. A perfect case is retirement. It is a stage of life that is designed to change what is normal in how we spend our days. Aging itself brings about an evolution of normalcy. Some people stop working out and others start working out more. Some people eat less, some people choose to eat better. Technology has been a big part of our altered state of normalcy. We get lost less with GPS. We venture forth more fearlessly with GPS. I plug in my Tesla and check my Tesla app to see how my use of electricity is going. I take my iPad everywhere around my house and have multiple work spaces that go well beyond my office desk. I have mobile desks for my media room, my living room, my garage, my deck, my patio, my kitchen and even my spa (I actually have a homemade spa desk made of PVC). It is perfectly normal for me to lie in bed with my iPad on my chest and the TV chattering away with news on in the background while I write a story like this one.

Nailing down normal is a mugs game. A “Mug” was the 19th-Century slang for a fool, in particular someone who falls prey to scammers and grifters playing games of chance. A “Mug’s Game” appeared as a phrase in the early 20th Century and is now a reference to a long-odds gambling activity that only losers and those without discipline might play. Well, there is no such thing as a ubiquitous form of normal. We have endured many changes to our collective lifestyles over the past two years, mostly thanks to COVID, but some due to Climate Change, and still more due to the attack on civil democratic society in the U.S. and elsewhere. We can always fuss about wanting our lives to be like we fondly or through rose-colored glasses remember it. That is an even bigger mug’s game than thinking normal can be concretely defined.

Indeed, some of us don’t strive to be normal or mainstream. I just bought a 96” high colorful outdoor metal sculpture of a rooster to put on my back hillside. There is nothing normal about that, and I revel in it. Let;s just stop trying to get back to normal in our lives and embrace the change that is the true normal of life. I’m taking on a new mantra now that normal is as normal does. With that, I will see if I can convince Kim to go back to the Angelica today to see Kenneth Branagh’s latest film, Belfast because I normally like to go to a movie of Friday.