Love
Douglas Adams.
Brilliant
writer. Creative and imaginative, at a level a rung or two above
legendary.
Love
Douglas Adams.
As
you might imagine, when an exceedingly creative and brilliantly
imaginative writer expresses some thoughts, it is done in fabulous
ways. (Yes, Adams has some great thoughts.)
One
of his observations that I’m quite fond of involves how we each
interpret what is normal as opposed to new and different. And
it’s the first part of his offering that I want to use.
His
view of normal, in my words, is that whatever exists in the world
and where we live when we’re born is what we will come to hold
as our basis of normal. It’s the starting line of what we know
and what we experience, and as such, the foundation of what we’re
comfortable with.
I
was thinking about that today while bringing some trash to the
dumpster outside the apartment. It was triggered mainly because
I was looking at a palm tree as I walked.
(Yes,
seeing a palm tree while walking with some trash brought about
an internal debate about normal. It’s not like you and I haven’t
taken this type of stroll together previously. Stay with me.)
While
muggy, the temperature was fine. Comfortable. Right around borderline
acceptable for wearing shorts regardless of your feelings about
how hot is hot enough for shorts and how cold is too cold for
shorts. Had some storms recently. Humid, storm often stops almost
as soon as it starts, warm rain.
Some
thousand miles away, my parents were getting rain as part of a
run of unstable weather over the recent week or two. Cold rain.
That type of winter rain that makes you feel soggy and achy and
chilled deep in your bones
Roughly
three hundred miles from them, around my permanent address, snow
was on the ground. Part of a recent six inches or so of accumulation
that was now packing down and melting away as the thermometer
teetered around and below the breakeven of freezing mark.
Winter
at all three residences. Same time zone for all three residences.
Main difference that thousand miles or so between the addresses.
It’s primarily north to south runs. The sunrise and sunset do
have some significant variations. But otherwise, the differences
to find are few.
Racoons?
At all three. Deer? All three. Four walls and a roof, clouds overhead
on occasion, trees nearby.
While
some of the names change, and the local treasures are community
based, you can get pizza at all three, hamburgers at all three,
egg rolls and sandwiches and orange juice and ice cream at all
three.
Normal,
by the strong majority of measuring methods, is normal at all
three.
Sister
lives in Australia. That’s double-digit time zones away. Different
hemisphere. Triple-digit-Fahrenheit temperatures there when sleet
is building up on windshields here. Even with their wildlife and
cheeseburgers checking off similar boxes, that’s an environment
where normal is different.
Normal
falls into all sorts of different categories. Across the street
can have a different normal, never mind across the country or
around the world. Sometimes, though, it takes a bit of separation
to see what’s right in front of you. (Palm tree or no.)