Harding spoke those words during his short-lived presidency (1921-1923) that followed the end of the first World War and the Spanish Flu pandemic. They ring true a century later, again following a war and a devastating pandemic. “Return to normalcy” was his campaign slogan for the election of 1920.
We’re all craving “normal” these days. But normal is hard to define unless you’re talking about a setting on the washing machine. Normalcy is generally what we’ve become accustomed to, what makes us feel safe and comfortable. Sometimes, though, what feels “normal” isn’t necessarily good or healthy, it’s just familiar. A worn out pair of shoes feels “normal” until you get a new pair and realize you wore the heels off on one side and were walking lopsided.
The pandemic, and all its accompanying inconveniences and disruptions and unpleasantness, have stripped away many of those comfortable layers of “normalcy” and exposed serious fractures in our societal foundations we’ve been brushing under the proverbial rug for a very long time, from the abject failure of “trickle down economics” (Hey, it sounded really good when Reagan explained it!) to problems with racism that have lingered like a slow-growing tumor since the Civil War. Cracks have been exposed on more personal levels, too. People have reevaluated their job choices, their relationships, and their lifestyles and realized they’ve been wearing ill-fitting shoes, so to speak, for a long time.
Some days “normal” sounds like bliss. When we’re in the murky mess of change, “normal” seems ideal… kind of like the person with no shoes is exceedingly grateful for ill-fitting ones. But we need to remember that we can’t just conceal those cracks with yet another cosmetic cover up, we need to correct the underlying structural problems, and that’s going to take time and intestinal fortitude, a lot of cooperation, and a heaping helping of ingenuity.
By NIKI TURNER – editor@editorht1885.com
