It’s a blanket
Reassuring and cosy sometimes.
With her cousin Constancy
Always there.
Not changing much
Maybe fraying and fading
Taking you to the source of memories
When things weren’t so bad
When the sun shone
With halcyon rays
When things were normal.
Daily enveloping
Your body’s state of being
Regulating it
Innoculating you from the life of risk
From unexpected outcomes
Closing off the world of dreams
So that they stay dreamlike and
Not normal
Not everyday experience
Neither achievable
Nor desirable.
But can normal ever quite be the same
as it was before things strayed
from whatever was last recognised
as normal?
Learning comes from mistakes
And the shattering of norms
Risk it or sleep to dream.
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1 comment:
"But can normal ever quite be the same
as it was before things strayed
from whatever was last recognised
as normal?"
You make a good point when you refer to whatever was last recognised as normal. Oh so tempting to refer to whatever was normal... but how can we identify what that is?
Normalcy - what a great word - can indeed feel like a snuggly blanket. But learning does come from the shattering of norms, and what value is there in something that doesn't change other than perhaps fraying and fading?
Well - we swaddle babies in blankets. We use them to comfort the sick and the elderly. They have a purpose but it is limited.
Blankets - and normality - have their place. But do we want to live lives that are safe and swaddled? Or do we want to live lives that push boundaries, challenge norms, embrace change and reach out into the future?
If things stray - if we stray - then whatever we knew as normal is inevitably altered. Not the same needn't mean worse. Or better. Just different. Changed, matured, learned, having taken risks and refused to slumber.
The poem can be read as a longing for normalcy or a challenge to be that risk taker - how was it written?
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