Back to normal and other lies

Last weekend, with Melbourne's lockdown and travel restrictions finally lifted, I got "back to normal" and visited my friend Alissa in her house for the first time. So not really "back", nor "normal".

Being increasingly a Noticer, as we have discussed previously on this gemlog, I noticed various plants on the walk from the train station. It didn't take unusual noticing skills to be aware of the hedge that perfumed the footpath effusively. I'm not sure what plant it was, but I identified the fragrance as "grandma's soap" so I guess it's probably some common English herb. I also noticed what to my eyes were very unusual and beautiful birds in a few front gardens. I didnt' recall seeing them before, and figured they must be some kind of native bird that is more local to Geelong than inner Melbourne.

When I got home I did a bit of research and it became clear fairly quickly that I was utterly wrong. These beautiful, unusual birds I saw are called ...Common Starlings. Far from being native and local to the Geelong area, they are an introduced species. And given the name, they're hardly considered to be "rare".

=> Common Starling (Sturnus vulgaris)

Starlings are known as a pest to orchardists. I feel like if you're planting out dozens of acres of land to a single delicious fruit crop, you can hardly be surprised if a flock of starlings drops by to enjoy the feast you have prepared for them. Rather like planting hundreds of kilometres exclusively to wheat and then being shocked by a mouse plague. Introduced agriculture, and introduced agricultural "pests". We're slow learners.

So Common Starlings are "normal". We're supposed to be "getting back to normal" at the moment, and expected to be pleased about it. I am pleased indeed to be able to meet up with friends, and not have to wear a face mask outdoors. But "normal" sucks, and in any case, nobody can go "back" to it really. COVID has unleashed some particularly unhinged conspiracies and cults. All the latent energy and anger that could have been directed in real radical left directions has instead been channeled into cults of bodily purity, straight up fascism and oddly international nativist chauvinism, and weird internet conspiracies fed and encouraged by algorithms that care only about serving as many advertisements as possible.

Normal was endless, noisy and polluting car traffic as people frantically spent weekends rushing from brunch at the latest café on the other side of the city, to shopping for clothes they didn't need, to the cinema to watch a film about superheroes from a 1950s American comic book, then back home to watch a home renovation show. Normal was shit. Normal was isolated, ugly, too loud, hard to breathe in.

Normal was also Not Noticing. Pretending that the ever increasing number of rough sleepers was simply a fact of life. Being too busy, too encased in plastic and glass, to focussed on scrolling on a portable computer to see the birds and smell the flowers. Normal was seeing starlings as fruit thieving pests rather than magnificent animals to please the eye. Or simply not noticing them at all.

So I will resist "back to normal". Not because the last two years have been delightful, but because they have been jarring. The shock should be used as a memory of how Big Care can work, if we want it to. A memory of what could be a priority, when governments wanted it to be. And a memory of why all that was undermined. Above all a memory of our ability to get through it, and of the positives we found: for me it was being more aware of the natural world around me, and giving thought to how I want to live when there are fewer restritions on what I can legally do. For others it was baking sourdough, or spending more time with family, or exploring local parks, or other things. For some people it just sucked. But we should lean in to ask ourselves why it has sucked, and what that says about what we might have missed, and why. I'm cutting down on my caffeine, and it's made me think about other addictions that have become hard-to-break habits we don't think about: designing human life around private vehicle ownership; assuming and requiring literacy in a particular written language; the commodification of everything; relationships with people and institutions as an individual, rather than as groups or communities. I don't necessarily recommend going Cold Turkey, but it would be to everyone's benefit to at least question what might happen if we cut some of these things from our collective diet.