The Joy of Normal

With neither undue pride nor shame, it’s safe to say that my life has not been normal. As a Jewish by blood/ Unitarian by upbringing/ Zen Buddhist by choice who plays banjo, accordion and Bulgarian bagpipe, this is not your typical American upbringing. Add to that my mixed-race grandchildren, African-American Orff teacher, Japanese Zen teacher, South Indian and Ghanaian drum teachers, Balinese and Ghanaian xylophone teachers, Spanish colleague, my travels to some 65 countries and teaching in 50 of them, a lifetime of teaching music in a job that pays me for slapping my body and playing clapping games with children and this doesn’t feel like a typical story. Memorizing some 30 poems, 300 jazz standards on the piano and as many folk songs with guitar, crying in front of people without apology and there’s more deviation yet from the red-blooded American male norm. Throw in growing up in New Jersey, going to a college in Ohio where I got credit for hitchhiking, wine-tasting and canoeing and living, for goodness sakes, in San Francisco out on the physical and cultural edge of the continent and the case is closed. 

 

“Norm” and “normal” are terms derived from a carpenter’s square that measures out right angles. To be normal is to fit into the straight and easily measurable. Good for woodworking, but not always the best for a life. A norm in any culture is a convenient fiction that assumes a certain standard—like the American one of the nuclear family, the straight white male power grid, the 9-to 5 job, the suburban home with the two-car garage— all of which can be—and has been— used against people to show how they don’t fit in. On a positive level, the old norms too casually accepted around race, sexuality, gender, religion and such have been thrown up into the air to enlarge the definition of who we can be and how the culture benefits by the increased diversity of ways we can be. On an a negative level, our adaptability as a species that requires us to accept any behavior that is repeated often enough has us in that most bizarre new norm whereby a former President who told 20,000 documented lies, incited an insurrection, is loyal to no one including his partner Vice-President who apparently could be hanged without remorse, who is indicted for 91 counts of breaking the law he swore to uphold, who has the support of alleged Christians supporting alleged family values while sleeping with porn stars , who boast that he can pass intelligence tests that most 3-year-olds could ace and is still somehow a viable candidate for re-election with the full support of his party—well, this is about as far from normal as any of us could have imagined even ten years ago. And yet the media keeps portraying it casually without an inkling of the “ARE YOU OUT OF YOUR FUCKING MIND??!!!” outrage it deserves. The new normal is a shitshow beyond belief.

 

But why title this “The Joy of Normal?” Because as Maria Montessori so wisely said:

“A place for everything and everything in its place.”

 

I mentioned a day of doctor’s visits trying to figure out why I’ve had two extreme episodes of dizziness and now an ongoing chronic light-headedness. That included getting some bloodwork back and a scheduling for an MRI. The bloodwork results came back today and in 8 out of 8 categories, the results were all within the normal range. That’s the place where normal is to be celebrated! 

 

Not so happy with the audiology test I took the same day but not surprise that I have significant enough hearing loss that it’s time—as many people have told me—to get a hearing aid. I’m below the norm and though somewhat normal for people my age—especially musicians who have played Balinese gamelan indoors and Bulgarian bagpipe—I wish the results were better. But this is a new normal I’m willing to accept. 

 

The moral of the tale? Sometimes it’s good to be normal. Sometimes it’s better not to be. Apply as needed.