Day One Hundred and Fifty-nine

Feest Isolation Days – 20 August

Our young neighbour whose bedroom faces our garden apparently came running down into his kitchen earlier this week to tell his mother excitedly, “Mum, Terry is fishing in the garden!”  It’s true there was a line being cast into the garden, with my fisherman attached to it, but sadly, there will be no fish at the end of his line. 

People who are serious fishermen (or women) practice their casting the way a pianist plays scales, or a basketball player shoots hoops, or a painter doodles, or a writer –  well – writes!  There isn’t always a fish at the end of the line, or a melody or a score, a finished painting or even a finished story.  It’s part of the journey along the way. Practise is what we all do a lot of the time in pursuit of whatever it is that we are trying to achieve.  Doctors “practice” medicine.  It’s called a law “practice”.  It’s often about the journey. And if you want to get anywhere with anything at all, practice is required!  Fish or football, words or paint, practice as they say – whoever they are – makes perfect.  If not quite perfect, getting on that way!

This week, more than most for ages, has been wonderfully social.  Daily plans that include spending a bit of time with other people in various ways sure do feel great!  From a walk and a coffee out with a girlfriend, to tea in the garden with a guy friend, Zoom Pilates and then….a visit to the kids with lunch being provided.  Wow!  A more usual sort of August week.  To top it all off we are having a socially distanced dining room with the window open meal with friends on Saturday! 

Normal it is not, although new normal it is becoming, I think there needs to be a better term.  It’s our life after all and we are living it.  Whatever is “normal” anyway?

That of course depends on who you ask!  It can mean:

A line or vector that is perpendicular to another line, surface, or plane.

A person who is normal, who fits into mainstream society, as opposed to those who live alternative lifestyles

Describing a straight chain isomer of an aliphatic hydrocarbon, or an aliphatic compound in which a substituent is in the 1- position of such a hydrocarbon

Denoting certain hypothetical compounds, as acids from which the real acids are obtained by dehydration; thus, normal sulphuric acid and normal nitric acid are respectively S(OH)6, and N(OH)5

Normal is an incorporated town in McLean County, Illinois, United States

So you can describe your life as normal for you.  You choose!  What is your new normal? Mine, thankfully, has begun to mean that there are other people in it from time to time a bit more often.  Hope your normal is agreeable to you. There may be a few different parameters for us all these days, but there are still lots of choices for us to make. Choose well.  And remember, practice makes perfect at whatever you choose! Even just living!

Be well.  Stay safe.

With love,

Kathy x