It was normal, until it wasn’t. The last few years have been rough. The pandemic ruptured our routines, so many things we took for granted. Then came the war, even while the sting of Covid has yet to die down. And now the world is in the grip of what seems to be rampant inflation, and we are possibly staring at a global recession, the last one being long forgotten by a generation raised to expect everlasting prosperity. Yet, the superior irony of dark times is that they jolt us to reflect on what really matters, to treasure “normal days” that were uneventful but in hindsight, precious for their uneventfulness, and to recalibrate our lives so that we can carry on living with learned wisdom and greater resilience. ‘A Normal Day’ is a poem I wrote to remind ourselves to treasure the uneventful normal days that many are now hoping will return, and soon.
A NORMAL DAY
One day, pestilence will come
to eat you up. One day, nations
will wage war against nations,
for no reason other than hubris.
One day, the shine of meetings
and conventions will fade like dust.
One day, your parties will seem
facile, pointless, and depleting.
One day, you will feel boneless,
too weak to even swing a mop.
One day, you will eat with sorrow
and weep yourself to sleep.
Then you will wish for one more
normal day, and hold it close to
your chest, and wear this plain rock
of a day like it is a rare and precious gem.