Time to Notice the Normal

 

The Dictionary of Obscure Sorrows, by John Koenig, not only has short definitions of brand new words, but also includes short essays expounding on things we non-poets seldom contemplate. One of those essays is so perfectly phrased, I can't even think about commenting on it without making sure you've actually read it. Here then, are the paragraphs that follow the definition of maru mori: the heartbreaking simplicity of ordinary things.

Most living things don't need to remind themselves that life is precious. They simply pass the time. An old cat can sit in the window of a bookstore, whiling away the hours as people wander through. Blinking calmly, breathing in and out, idly watching a van being unloaded across the street, without thinking too much about anything. And that's alright. It's not such a bad way to live.

So much of life is spent this way, in ordinary time. There's no grand struggle, no sacraments, no epiphanies. Just simple domesticity, captured in little images, here and there. All the cheap little objects. The jittering rattle of an oscillating fan; a pair of toothbrushes waiting in a cup by the sink. There's the ragged squeal of an old screen door, the dry electronic screech of a receipt being printed, the ambient roar of someone showering upstairs. And the feeling of pulling on a pair of wool socks on a winter morning and peeling them off at the end of the day. These are sensations that pass without a second thought. So much of it is barely worth noting.

But in a couple hundred years, this world will turn over to a completely different cast of characters. They won't look back and wonder who won the battles or when. Instead, they'll try to imagine how we lived day to day, gathering precious artifacts of the world as it once was, in all its heartbreaking little details. They'll look for the doodles left behind in the margins of our textbooks, and the dandelions pressed in the pages. They'll try to imagine how our clothes felt on our bodies, and what we ate for lunch on a typical day, and what it might've cost. They'll wonder about our superstitions, the weird little memes and phrases and jokes we liked to tell, the pop songs we hummed mindlessly to ourselves. They'll try to imagine how it must've felt to stand on a street corner, looking around at the architecture, hearing old cars rumbling by. The smell in the air. What ketchup must have tasted like.

We rarely think to hold on to that part of life. We don't build statues of ordinary people. We don't leave behind little plaques to commemorate the milestones of ordinary time:

HERE ON THE TWENTY-FIFTH OF MARCH

NINETEEN HUNDRED AND NINETY-FOUR

SOME NEIGHBORS WENT OUT WALKING THEIR DOGS

THE CHILDREN TOOK TURNS HOLDING THE LEASH

IT WAS A FUN AFTERNOON FOR EVERYONE INVOLVED

But it all still happened. All those cheap and disposable experiences are no less real than anything in our history books, no less sacred than anything in our hymnals.- Perhaps we should try keeping our eyes open while we pray, and look for the meaning in the things right in front of us: in the sound of Tic Tacs rattling in a box, the throbbing ache of hiccups, and the punky smell that lingers on your hands after doing the dishes. Each is itself a kind of meditation, a reminder of what is real.

We need these silly little things to fill out our lives, even if they don't mean all that much. If only to remind us that the stakes were never all that high in the first place. It's not always life-and-death. Sometimes it's just life  -  and that's alright.

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Truth is...I'm not sure how all this fits or conflicts with any particular theology, but I do know our lives will be measurably sweeter and richer and fuller the more we recognize and appreciate that we are...indeed...standing on holy ground; that the world is a wondrous place; that to live is a great adventure.