But it IS Normal! ~ Part II
But it IS Normal!
Part II
It's good to sit here,
Rest awhile.
Get’s so intense...
It's good to sit here,
Rest awhile.
Get’s so intense...
Up road
along the coast,
int’ city, like,
I'm accepted
for who and what I am!
Got that?
For what I am!
Down road
along’t coast,
equidistant,
int’ village
I'm rejected
for who and what I am...
It's daft, plain daft.
But nowt twain shall meet!
Trouble is...
half folk live int’ city
T’other half int’ village.
Now... cousin tells me...
I've caused a row...
that I should've kept me mouth shut!
that I should've "tried to be normal!"
That kicked off the city lot
"he IS normal!"
and then a fight...
So here I am
not quite sure where to head,
what to do.
So I reckon I'll just stay here awhile.
Funny innit!
Used to play over there!
City boys and Village kids.
We never even thought about
who and what I am.
But seems like folks have had their own
ideas of who and what I am,
and who I'm have to be
and what I have to be
and who I’ll marry.
News to me!
They aint said a single word to me!
Oh well.
It'll sort, I guess.
But I aint capitulating
I'm doing my OWN thing.
Yeah.
My OWN thing!
Daft init!
Century from now
w’ent pushing up daisies,
folks will look back
to those damn dark evil days,
when idiots was 'urting others
just coz who and what they were!
Daft twats! [i]
Author Note 2014
When this was posted via social media in 2014 it prompted an important interaction took from a subscriber, at that time in Vienna. R is 'bang on target' and it made me realise the need to convey my own mind-frame when composing the lines - very positive and upbeat. There is no depression in the image; rather, a young man reasoning things, taking time out to do just that, realising that he faces a lifetime where we are always amid extremes or polarised thoughts. We want to live normal lives, so these extremes and polar attitudes make our navigation difficult, plotting a safe route, complex.
And though it isn't stated directly, he knows too that it's his task to pull the extremes together, to reduce the gap between the polarised extremes. And there's something in the way he sits and ponders, that communicates very powerfully, that he will succeed!
R, in sending me the banner image, attached the following:
“It is not easy to live in a village. Knowing what opinion others have of you.
I was born in the countryside. I could not stand it. Escape to the city.
Finally minded to know.
Relief, I’m not the only one.
Love and let love.
After thirty years I’m back in the village. And I love it.
Walks in the woods with my dog.
Chicken feed, protect vegetable before the snails,
be happy when it rains ........”
. [ii]
In 2014 I replied:
Absolutely! The return to countryside and lanes, the great and high trees, the fields, the stone walls for shelter. Yes, these never leave us. Our return brings with us a spirit of enlightenment and acceptance. Without realising, we become the living hope for the young ones suddenly finding themselves going down the same path of prejudice.
It is why I've written this poem in the fashion it is. There is hope, and the young man sitting, resting, thinking things through, is not perturbed by prejudice.
He's summed them all up in those two final words in that last line. In my mind’s eye, he springs up triumphant, unbowed, puts his top back on, and sprints into work - a happy chap - full of life, compassionate, loving.
[i] English slang term meaning, in the context of this poem, an annoying person, or people
[ii] the verse below is loosely translated from the German, R’s first language
1 March 2025
Written 1 July 2014
Last reviewed 1 June 2022 and polished up on 6 April 2025
Banner Photo by Brian Lawson on Unsplash
Ken Webb is a writer and proofreader. His website, kennwebb.com, showcases his work as a writer, blogger and podcaster, resting on his successive careers as a police officer, progressing to a junior lawyer in succession and trusts as a Fellow of the Institute of Legal Executives, a retired officer with the Royal Air Force Volunteer Reserve, and latterly, for three years, the owner and editor of two lifestyle magazines in Liverpool.
He also just handed over a successful two year chairmanship in Gloucestershire with Cheltenham Regency Probus.
Pandemic aside, he spends his time equally between his city, Liverpool, and the county of his birth, Gloucestershire.
In this fast-paced present age, proof-reading is essential. And this skill also occasionally leads to copy-editing writers’ manuscripts for submission to publishers and also student and post graduate dissertations.
