Out of the Ordinary
These days, after my early morning routine of strong coffee and a little time with a good book, I don a uniform of sorts consisting of khakis equipped with those nifty pockets on the legs and a gray polo bearing the logo of a local garden store. Yes, I now have a side hustle just like all the cool kids, those aspiring writers I follow on social media.
The other day I was talking with the person who supervises my work, a woman who oversees all of the plants: the inside and the outside ones, from flowering tropicals to petunias and impatiens, those stalwart staples that brighten the planters and gardens of Wisconsin summers. The cactuses and the potted palms and even the air plants are her charges. Her crystal blue gaze belied a kind of hurt. She observed that sometimes customers look right through a person just because they work at the store, as if one is not even a human being at all. I told her that I considered the job honest, hard work, like the kind that I did to pay for college and law school. I shared that in my professional life I often saw people in lofty positions of prestige and influence who were less than honest and frequently dismissive of their fellow human beings. As such her point was well taken.
The ordinary is seldom noticed and seemingly never a source of aspiration. If one wants to be an influencer on social media the ONE thing one must not be is ordinary. To be so is a scourge. One will be banished to outer darkness with nary a comment much less a “like,” left to gnash virtual teeth in solitary confinement.
As usual I find myself at odds with this conventional wisdom, questioning it with the glee of an impudent child who must poke at and play with what is verboten until I topple it to the floor. Grinning, I run at it, my scissors pointed straight ahead. With my pen poised, I prod and pester.
What is so wrong with the ordinary anyway? A plain white mug steaming with fresh, black, and therefore unadulterated, coffee fills me with a sense of continuity that is comforting. There is nothing very exciting about a common toothbrush but they sure are useful. A handful of singles stashed in the pocket of a jacket I haven't worn in months feels like free money. Folding laundry or doing dishes contribute to an ordered life, that and clean socks when you need them. I find myself inwardly sighing in relief when I am among “ordinary” people as opposed to the self-appointed, self-important change agents. I can just be and it is enough.
As human beings we certainly take note of the unique, marvel at the phenomenal. It is the person set apart, head and shoulders above the rest that gets the attention. Yet, in tales of ancient legend it is the lowly, social castoff that becomes king. A world renowned leader once chose common working men as followers, and they were said to have turned the world upside down. The Unknown Soldier is honored to remember all the ordinary fellows who gave all they had in unseen moments of heroism to push back tyranny. Rembrandt often memorialized the faces of the common folk. There is nothing unusual about early morning sunlight on a sleepy harbor, but under the hand of a once-in-a-generation talent, it becomes a timeless work of art. The everyday beauty was there all along. Someone with the capacity to capture it and get others to notice it was all that was needed.
The genesis of the word ordinary, and its mutations over time, range from the predictable to the surprising. Born out of the Anglo-French, ordinaire, its earliest usage was in the area of religion and law. It could refer to a lower court or the parts of the Mass that remained unchanged regardless of the day’s significance on the church calendar. An ordinary referred to clergy assigned to attend the criminally condemned. In Great Britain ordinary came to refer to a simple meal served to all comers at a fixed price at a local tavern or eatery.
ordinary adj. or·di·nary 1: of a kind to be expected in the normal order of events 2: of common quality, rank, or ability 3: having or constituting immediate or original jurisdiction
In the most familiar sense, ordinary describes the routine, the common, whether in rank, quality, or ability. At its most demeaning it connotes someone or something seen as inferior or lacking in refinement or distinction.
The truth is nothing about this current interval in human history feels ordinary. Many had come to miss those everyday routines we once took for granted as part of the daily grind, like going to the office or getting the kids off to school. In the upheaval of the last year or so, how important ordinary things and people became, though previously overlooked. Toilet paper, for instance, a staple addition to the grocery list became a premium commodity at the outset of lockdowns. We discovered that those who stock shelves, who deliver food, who clean up behind us, were as essential as the more typically lauded practitioners of the medical arts, and far more important than a favorite entertainer or internet influencer.
It isn’t usually exotic haute cuisine we think of as comfort food. It is more often ordinary fare closely associated with the simpler dishes of home, conjuring memories of carefree childhood. There is something reassuring about the ordinary and routine. One dreams of vacations to foreign, and therefore, exciting places. In November of 2019 I had the pleasure to travel with my youngest daughter to Capetown, South Africa for a wedding. We found ourselves immersed in vistas and histories far removed from what we call home, each experience laced with the hospitality of a nation as beautiful as it was complex in its diversity. Yet on the long flight back, my mind was drawn to the familiar surroundings of my sunporch, and thoughts of curling up in my favorite chair with a cat sleeping in my lap.
Speaking of pets, awards to the best-in-show winners go to distinct breeds refined to conform to a standard of perfection. My two feline companions are ordinary foundlings from a rescue shelter without a pedigree to their name. Yet for me they are all joy and contentment, bringing delight in their every antic. Ordinary mutts make up for what they lack in breeding with intelligence and love.
Ordinary People, a movie that took home several academy awards, explored the understandable, even commonplace reactions of mere human beings as they attempt to cope with unexpected family loss. Of course, this being Hollywood’s rendition of “ordinary” people they were from the Midwest. Wealthy suburbanite Chicagoans are not exactly what comes to my mind when I think of ordinary people, but it is true that certain circumstances have a way of levelling the field no matter one’s station in life. The untimely loss of a child will tear at even the stouthearted, and wealth and position do not, in the end, lessen such a blow.
Since starting my side hustle I am reminded of the importance of the ordinary, the everyday. How good it feels to sit down to my lunch with a co-worker after hours spent cleaning pots and caring for the plants. How deliciously a cold bottle of plain water quenches my thirst after working in the sun. I relish the tired sigh of satisfaction at the end of a shift knowing I have completed a day’s work.
I have always tried to be kind to people who wait on me in stores and restaurants. Seeing life again from the other side of this perspective, though, has brought me something more valuable than a little mad cash in my jean pocket. It has lent me a fresh set of images and experiences, the paint pots and brushes of writers. I have reconnected with people who teach me of the breadth and depth of the human heart in the simplest of terms. Each one is a story told, and still being written…..
