I’ve asked a few different bloggers the question “How do you Not Dabble in Normal?” Over the course of the next few weeks I’m going to share their answers with you in the hopes that we’ll all learn something new and perhaps get a different perspective on normal and the folks who choose a slightly different path. This week’s answer & post comes from Joanna (her bio follows her article).
Fighting the Normality of the Suburbs
Unlike many of the other writers here, I live squarely in the suburbs of a city, in one of the most affluent counties in the country. My old farmhouse on an acre is surrounded by miles of subdivisions of new, identical houses, with perfectly manicured lawns and the occasional privacy fence. By moving to the house we did- the little over-100-year-old farmhouse on an acre instead of the typical “starter house” on a postage-stamp lot, I made a conscious choice to fight “Normal” in the suburbs.
A year and a half after moving to my non-typical suburban dwelling, I’ve forgotten what “normal” is. I’ve forgotten Normal people shop at Walmart without a second thought to the company’s employment practices or sources of cheap products. Normal people buy fruit in the dead of winter, in our Midwest citywhere strawberries won’t be growing for six months, and any mango available for purchase has more frequent flyer miles than I do. Normal people talk about the latest episode of The Office or LOST over coffee at work. Normal people care that their lawn is green and pruned perfectly, regardless of what chemicals it takes to make it that way. Normal people eat frozen dinners and Hamburger Helper.
As for me? I shudder when I step into a Walmart or get served a way-out-of-season tomato. I’m clueless as to pop culture because I don’t watch the TV at all- I’d get rid of it except for the fact we still watch the occasional movie. As for my “landscaping”- I plant something edible anywhere I can. I’ve got berries and herbs in my front yard, more herbs in the flower garden in back, and a big, practical vegetable garden that most Normal people would consider unsightly. I still have a box of Hamburger Helper sitting in my pantry, from my Normal days, that I don’t have the heart to cook. I hadn’t realized how spoiled I had gotten on fresh, local, and home-canned food until I bought some frozen veggies from the store in a pinch- and when I served it to guests and I gagged and apologized- they didn’t taste anything wrong.
By fighting off Normality and choosing to live lightly, sustainably, responsibly, and justly, I’m able to opt out of the crazy game played here- a game of one-upping your neighbor with your next house, car, electronics, or vacation purchase. Because my house and lifestyle is so different than my neighbors, in their houses worth 5 to 6 times what mine is, I don’t feel a need to keep up with the proverbial Joneses. My footprint on the earth is smaller, and my life is simpler. Now, my Normal family and neighbors don’t think so- Why would you make your own laundry detergent or can your own food or buy beef from a farmer, when all of this is available at so much convenience at one of the five drugstores or two grocery stores within two miles of your house? (Yes, there are actually 3 CVSes, 2 Walgreens, & 2 Krogers within 2 miles of me.)
Go Kathie! I agree with everything you said.
I too am not “normal” but my friends family are little more understanding. They are curious and kind of amazed that I drink raw milk etc… But don’t really understand why I do it.
One of my sisters couldn’t understand why I would save my own seed when I could buy it “cheaper”. After I explained she kind of understood but wouldn’t do it herself.
Keep up the good work. Lisa
I’m never sure what the neighbors think of us with the front yard full of herbs and flowers, the side yard now sporting huge raised beds for veggies, and containers of edibles stuck everywhere. I know a couple of the other cul-de-sac odd ducks think it’s cool and suspect the rest find it pretty strange. Although they’re happy to get the occasional tomato and the yard-obsessed old man across the street has finally started waving to me after 15 years because I’m out in the yard all the time too so we must have SOMETHING in common.
Then again, the archery range and occasional sword fight practices in the back yard (it’s too shady for a decent garden so we might as well have fun with it!), the world music streaming from the house at odd hours, and the backyard wedding in full Cavalier regalia (total cost, including our amazing outfits, less than most couples spend on a DJ) might have clued the neighborhood in to the fact we’re Not Like Them in some ways. And until the economy forced me to take an office job instead of writing and homemaking fulltime, I’d almost forgotten TV existed. Even if we had one, who has time to sit still that much?
I always joke that “we’re far enough out we need a telescope to see mainstream America,” for a lot of reasons. We’re taking baby steps on the journey toward being a different, new-yet-old way of life, but I enjoy stopping in here and being reminded that we have company on the sometimes frustrating and sometimes enjoyable trip.
I think that’s really neat. My parents want a ‘big city’ life in a town of 5000 people and I’d rather live in a big city and be eccentric.
I think you should keep on what you’re doing. I’m still trying to get my mom to try making things from scratch even though it’s cheaper to buy them (like vinegar and soap).
Even the ancients understood that sometimes it was a better quality to make things yourself than to buy them. Even they complained about the quality of items (like from an inn).
Thanks for all the encouragement! Sounds like those of us stuck in the suburbs have the same experience!
Mornien & Lisa, I can totally relate to your family not ‘getting’ it. I had a party at my house last spring, and I knew my health-conscious sister might not be excited about the hot dogs cooking over the bonfire, so I said. “Look! You can go pick your own fresh-from-the-garden salad!”
She responded “Eww! No! Out of the ground? It might have dirt on it!”
“Even the lettuce you get at the grocery store comes out of the ground- at least you know where this has been”
“Well, I just don’t like to think about it.”
I was baffled.
People want things too ‘clean’ now. No dirt, no imperfection. I think we could all use to eat a bit of dirt, and what your sister said, Joanna, made me laugh. There’s never going to be a world free of disease, so a little dirt isn’t going to do that much damage. (Unless it’s got pesticides or herbicides or something.)
Grocery store food makes me nervous with the quality of it sometimes, and where it came from. At least with homegrown food, you know what’s in your yard, what’s on your plants, and what grows up with and alongside the plants (animal and bug wise).
Amen, sister! I’m trying to balance graduate school in my 40′s while raising four children by myself – so I can become gainfully employed again – with as much homesteading as I can manage on 1.3 acres – so I can feed myself and my children in an ever-wackier economy. Friends and acquaintances seem to be ok with me raising meat rabbits (for the most part) but all reflexively assume that I take them somewhere for butchering. Never occurs to them that yes, a person can butcher her own meat.
Meanwhile, the town is fussing over recent regulations that want to restrict how I use my land – land which was, until 1996, cow pasture. *headdesk*
I’ve never watched The Office or Lost. I drank raw milk my 17 growing-up years. I’ve recently made dandelion jelly, cooked sorrel in a milk sauce, and eaten violet blossoms — all weeds growing in my less-than-manicured lawn. But I do shop at Walmart. Agreed, too many people shop at Walmart for that to be “not normal,” but in certain circles, it most certainly IS normal and quite the vogue to bash Walmart.
Walmart is big, and carries plenty of imported products, but I think Walmart has been unfairly maligned in regard to its employment practices.
Great Post!! Loved all the comments too. I am mid west ABnormal suburbia too… baby steps for me too. I loved the comment about dirt on your produce/garden stuff. I have family that raises pasture beef cows and have invited friends and other family to visit. These are city folk and they want NOTHING to do with where their food comes from. Yikes! It drives me batty. I am not vegetarian but only eat meat that I know where and how it lived. We buy from the farmer cousins in bulk- then we get the ” why so much when the grocery is walking distance?” Urgh…. have you tasted that junk???
Sorry for the rambling… I guess I needed to vent! Thanks!
cathy c
I so love to read posts by others who are also in a “normal” neighborhood behaving decidedly “un-normal”! Love it! Here is my urban bordering suburban lot, I have wetlands, buffer zone, a wonderful riverfront and my own food growing as well as wildlife welcoming life. My neighbors also don’t eschew the extra strawberries or tomatoes, but only now am I hearing any interest in maybe doing a little of it themselves.
I love how our “un-normal” ways can spread.
Great post
Agreed! I live in a rural county that is trying to be normal and suburban. An interesting combination. Being that I am an ‘import’ and not a local, residents will often ask my local boyfriend if I have lost my rocker. Well, guess if I had one then yes, I have lost it! =)
Glad to see that others are just as un-normal as I am. =)
I realized I wasn’t ‘normal’ when two people in the past 48-hour period asked me “WHAT are you going to do with all this food?” Each time I was shocked. What do you THINK I’m going to do with it? Checkers? A puppet show?