Normal is killing us

whether you're normal or not

Hello friends,

Do you suffer from not being normal?

Do you also suffer from actually being normal? As in, living amongst society in some way?

I’m thinking about this a lot lately. I wrote a bit last week about having an ongoing eye rash (I believe it’s an allergy to retinol which apparently can come on out of nowhere, but time will tell), and I’ve written many times before about back issues, chronic migraines, wrenching my neck, nad having hand pain from tendonitis for A YEAR. And the more I’ve written about this, the more I’ve heard from others, and the more it strikes me that breakdowns are normal now. Chronic illness and pain are rampant. Everyone is breaking down. Everyone knows someone who is really breaking down. We all hope we’re not next.

I feel like I’ve survived so many breakdowns. Big, horrible ones: My own dad died from cancer back in 2009. A few years later his sister died from cancer.

I’ve gone through wildly disorienting life breakdowns in my thirties. My relationship ended after twelve years (and our creative partnership died with it). My car broke down. I moved back in with my mom. I left a career in screenwriting just as it was taking off. Then last year my family members all broke down: divorce, addiction, a broken leg.

Things have softened for us this year so far, but even after all that, now there’s this damn eye rash. It’s really gotten me good and furious, and the irritation of it all propelled me to pick up Gabor Maté’s book The Myth of Normal.

I’m just a chapter in and it’s already soothing me. He writes:

“If we could begin to see much illness itself not as a cruel twist of fate or some nefarious mystery but rather as an expected and therefore normal consequence of abnormal, unnatural circumstances, it would have revolutionary implications for how we approach everything health related. The ailing bodies and minds among us would no longer be regarded as expressions of individual pathology but as living alarms directing our attention toward where our society has gone askew.”

In an abnormal world, an unnatural society, sickness makes sense. Pain is a logical response. We should study it. He continues:

“Our culture’s skewed idea of normality is the single biggest impediment to fostering a healthy world, even keeping us from acting on what we already know.”

Being “normal” feels like an obsession in our culture. The right wing obsession with straight families, with birthing as many children as possible. Returning to white dominance. Male dominance. Christian dominance. Cold and unfeeling healthcare systems. Work and labor dominance over rest, peace, sensitivity, art. Everywhere you look, people are burnt out. Everyone is healing something. The old normal is hurting us.

. . .

I’m currently making my way through Rachel Cusk’s Kudos, the final novel in her Outline trilogy. I’ve read them all during different summers. They’re very, very quiet novels about a woman, a successful writer and writing teacher, who is going through a divorce, then living on her own with her kids, and now in this third novel it appears she’s gotten remarried. I often say that, while I love these books, I have no idea who I’d recommend them to as they have almost zero plot. And almost zero character! They’re more of a mood. Very intelligent and a little sleepy, and yet they reel me in. The scenes in each novel are primarily composed of other people talking to/at the protagonist, and you find out little things about her that way.

It’s basically a lot of really fantastic talking. Perhaps imagine the Before Sunrise movies and then remove the love story. And remove one of the people!

Anyway, it’s not for everyone, but the other afternoon one moment in Kudos made me stop and read this bit aloud to the person sitting next to me:

“He had come to the conclusion that most questions were nothing more than an attempt to ascertain conformity, like rudimentary maths problems. Two and two did indeed usually equal four: it was when you gave a different answer, he had discovered, that people got upset.”

I know I’m not the only one who sat up a little straighter upon reading that. (It actually reminded me of this video I saw recently).

Our world can be so unkind, dismissive, belittling, and downright unfriendly to the people who don’t answer mundane questions with mundane answers.

I’ve definitely been feeling this lately. Listen, when you’re 39 and living with your mother, going through a career transition, not in a relationship, and not very interested in having kids, people don’t handle it well. Especially if you have the audacity to be happy.

This is the moment in my life in which people are really starting to get upset with me. I’m not following the rules.

And yet isn’t this the truth with everything, especially being in the arts? QUESTION: Which came first—chicken or the egg—did you not fit into society first and therefore became an artist to survive OR were you an artist first and therefore couldn’t fit into society? Round and round we go.

. . .

If normal is killing us, and yet we shoot down other people for not being normal “like us,” where does that leave us? It’s an impossible position. Humanity can’t change or progress if humanity isn’t allowed to branch off and do life differently.

I don’t really have an answer other than to do my best with my own life. I tend to live on the fringes anyway. I’m happy away from the center, off in my creative world. But that doesn’t mean that “normal” doesn’t hurt me. My body hurts. My life broke down really hard. And we can heal in private—I’ve done that a lot, I’ve disappeared from my old life in a lot of ways—but for the most part we can’t actually fully separate from society. There is always gonna be some guy at some party who, when I tell him I write (or I paint, I make films, whatever), will say, “Huh,” and cross his arms as if it’s now time to interrogate me on my finances, see if I’m worth his time. There is always gonna be some woman asking me, “Don’t you want to find someone? Isn’t being an aunt just the best?” Implying I’m in training ground for my real life as a mom someday.

Most people who follow the straightforward path in life don’t have to defend their lives. (I get really, really jealous of people who are married with kids for this reason alone.)

And yet, as Gabor Maté explains in his book, normal is killing us. Our jobs and environments, our normal world, is making us sicker than ever. Having a normal career, getting married, having kids—it’s obviously really wonderful for so many people, but it’s not a bulwark against suffering. It can be a bulwark against judgment.

And you can also hide a real self (sometimes a very troubled self) quite effectively behind those normal structures.

Everyone suffers in our current normal society. Therefore, in order to be okay, everyone needs to learn to withstand the discomfort of deviating from the norm—in the way that’s right for them.

. . .

I’ve often found that the most judgmental among us tend to be people who haven’t been tested. Through death, illness, breakups, failure, and so on. If you haven’t been in the muck, you tend to be a bit of a dick.

My people are always the ones walking with a slight limp. They’re not normal and they know it. And the abnormal are safe to be themselves around them.

It strikes me that, in our current “normal” culture, the only way to resist is to be abnormal, i.e., do what’s right for you. And, ironically, that might make you a little sicker for a while. Maybe not everyone experiences this, but being the weird one throughout my life has been hard on me, body, heart, mind, soul, all of it. Being judged harshly for being different or for visibly struggling is going to add extra shame to your body. It is a lot to carry.

But I also believe that in the end it will build you a stronger backbone. It’s certainly done that for me. And I’m still going through it.

I’ll be honest—I’m not sure this is the most uplifting way to leave this, but I’m a work in progress over here. Just let me know—do you relate? The more I look around, the more it feels like we’re not only not alone, but in fact many of us are actually in the same boat, more than we realize.

That, in itself, can be its own form of medicine.

Life Details:

-We’re in full summer now here. As I type this I can smell the fresh cut grass out my window. Yesterday I journaled outside and a toad took a nap nearby, his little chin on his wrist like a sleeping dog. Summer begins with lots of plans, but eventually it overtakes you and becomes what it wants to be: sleepy, hot, dreamy, a ripening.

-I’ve started a little pocket notebook thanks to a sudden burst of inspiration from this post. It’s proving to be helpful for soothing my anxiety lately. I’m writing little bits of narration on my life, taping in some of my random post-its from my desk, treating it like a little scrapbook that I can also make to-do lists in. Because it’s not a “real notebook,” I think that actually makes me want to use it more.

-For the 4th of July, I ended up making a ginger triple berry pie. It was marvelous (I skipped the candied ginger though and it was perfect). I’ve copied it below for non-subscribers. Then, this week, I took a sort of “break” from sweets and made energy bites. It’s one of those recipes my mom printed out at least a decade ago and now lives in a chaotic binder. Here’s the recipe. They’re supposed to be healthy and I guess they are, slightly…but anyway, they’re easy and tasty and you don’t have to turn the oven on. 👍

Some Poems:

“Dust” by Dorianne Laux

“Sentimental Moment or Why Did the Baguette Cross the Road” by Robert Hershon

“What I Didn’t Know Before” by Ada Limón

“[untitled] [surely i am able to write poems]” by Lucille Clifton

A Prompt:

What’s it like to be strange in the way that you’re strange? What don’t they know? What do you gain from being misunderstood? A little mystery can be a kind of fuel sometimes…

Lots of love,

Rebecca

Gingery Mixed Berry Pie

By Yossy Arefi

Published July 24, 2017

Ingredients

Yield:One 9-inch pie

FOR THE FILLING

• ⅔ cup/140 grams granulated sugar

• 1 teaspoon finely grated lemon zest

• 5 tablespoons/40 grams cornstarch

• 2 teaspoons very finely grated, peeled fresh ginger

• 1 tablespoon candied ginger, finely minced (optional)

• 4 cups/592 grams blueberries

• 2 cups/288 grams blackberries

• 2 cups/246 grams raspberries

• 1 tablespoon freshly squeezed lemon juice

• Pinch kosher salt

TO FINISH

• 1 egg for egg wash

• 2 teaspoons turbinado sugar

• ¼ teaspoon flaky salt, like Maldon, not table salt

FOR THE CRUST

• A double batch of all-butter pie crust, refrigerated

Preparation

1. Step 1

   In a large bowl, combine the sugar and lemon zest. Rub the zest into the sugar with your fingertips until well combined and fragrant. Stir in the cornstarch, fresh ginger and candied ginger (if using). Add the blueberries, blackberries and raspberries to the bowl. Sprinkle the lemon juice over the top, but don’t stir quite yet. Let sit while you make the dough.

2. Step 2

   Place one disk of the pie dough on a lightly floured surface. With a lightly floured rolling pin, roll the dough into a 12-inch-wide circle ⅛ to ¼ inch thick. Fit it into a 9-inch pie dish, trim any rough edges, leaving a 1-inch overhang, and set it in the fridge while you roll the other crust and cut the lattice.

3. Step 3

   Roll the second disk of pie dough into a circle roughly 12 inches wide and ⅛ to ¼ inch thick. Use a pastry wheel or knife to cut the dough into strips about 1 ½ inches wide.

4. Step 4

   Gently stir the filling together until well mixed and pour it into the pie dish. Press gently to pack down the berries into the dish.

5. Step 5

   Weave the dough strips into a lattice. Trim off any excess dough and fold the edges of the bottom crust up and over the lattice strips. Crimp together the edges. Slide the whole pie into the freezer until the crust is very firm, about 15 minutes. While the pie is chilling, heat the oven to 400 degrees and set a rack in the bottom third of the oven.

6. Step 6

   After the pie has chilled, place it on a baking sheet to catch any drips. Beat the egg, then brush the top of the pie with the egg wash and sprinkle with turbinado sugar and flaky salt.

7. Step 7

   Bake the pie until it is deep golden brown and the juices are bubbling, 45 to 55 minutes. If the crust begins to burn before the filling bubbles, tent it with aluminum foil. Cool before serving.