Last week, I offered the members of the Sovereign Writers Circle this writing prompt:
Write a Letter to “Normal”
As the world seems to change by the hour and things that were totally commonplace just a week ago seem like an impossible, distant dream, we are constantly being asked to adapt to a new normal.
Spend some time considering what “normal” is. What was normal then, what is normal now? What is this thing they call “normal” anyway?
One of our Sovereign Writers shared the most simple and true opening line:
Dear Normal, I miss you…
Amen! Isn’t that something we’re all feeling right now?
We miss “Normal,” but the greatest stories require us to leave Normal behind
As is so often the way, you only see the real possibilities of your creation after you put it into the world and let people make it their own.
When the members of the SWC talked about various understandings of “normal,” I saw something totally new contained within that prompt of mine.
I saw the start of the Hero’s Journey.
If you’ve spent any time thinking about storytelling, you’ve probably heard about Hero’s Journey. The scholar Joseph Campbell compared ancient myths from around the world and found a common story across a host of cultures that described the individual’s process of “becoming.” This framework has been applied to everything from the creation of epic movie sagas to the development of brands and personal narratives.
As the Hollywood story consultant Christopher Vogler describes it in The Writer’s Journey, the classic Hero’s Journey begins with a Call to Adventure that causes the (s)hero to leave the everyday “normal” work and go on a great and dangerous quest.
The most well-known examples of heroes who trace this journey, of course, are Dorothy leaving Kansas for Oz and Luke leaving Tatooine to take on the Empire. Think of these iconic characters and their worlds we know so well…
“Normal” wasn’t necessarily perfect. Both of them hated their pokey old farms and longed for something more.
They didn’t make the leap just because they yearned for adventure, however. They answered that Call to Adventure only when faced with calamity. Dorothy got swept up in a tornado. Luke’s aunt and uncle were killed by storm troopers. They had no choice but to respond to a moment of great disruption.
At the conclusion of a the story, after many travails, and with the help of many allies, the protagonist returns to where the story began. They’ve changed in some fundamental way and are now armed with the elixir, the great wisdom or solution that will benefit everyone who stayed behind in the Ordinary World.
We are all at the same point in the Hero’s Journey
Before I go on, I want to mention the true heroes in this pandemic.
Hospital employees - from cleaning staff to receptionists to doctors to respiratory therapists - are saving lives and helping people transition. Volunteers are making masks at home and aid workers are delivering food and supplies to people confined without resources. Grocery store staff and delivery workers are keeping life going for all of the healthy, huddled masses. I recognize them and thank them all.
So, when I say “we” are all at the same point in the Hero’s Journey, I mean all of us who might have the time to sit down to write a letter that begins, “Dear Normal, I miss you…”
I am writing this post for those of us who are riding out Covid-19 on the couch, worrying about keeping the kids busy and keeping the business running. I am writing for those of us who haven’t been thrust out of “normal” by great calamity. (Yet.)
It’s my sincerest prayer that everyone who reads this will not encounter a life-changing, journey-defining event during this pandemic. Sadly, I think it’s inevitable that some of us will suffer great loss, but we’re not even at the middle of this crisis yet, and we just don’t know.
No matter what happens in the weeks to come, we are all at that point of beginning a great new adventure because we’re never going to be able to go back to life as it was.
We’ll never look at a supermarket aisle full of toilet paper or a full bottle of hand sanitizer in the same way.
When we’re back on Main Street again and the world is again open for business, we will undoubtedly see empty storefronts because beloved small businesses and restaurants will not be able to come back from.
People we love up close or admire from afar will die. We’ll all understand that life, society, and the economy are much more fragile than we imagined.
The Journey Ahead Will Be Terrible and Beautiful
Like Dorothy and Luke, we don’t have choice about leaving Normal behind.
If you want to be the shero of your own life - to stand Sovereign in your own life - you need to accept this call to step out of the reality that was and into the strange new world. (Metaphorically, of course. We’re not stepping anywhere except on a socially distanced walk in the sunshine.)
The way ahead is full of risk and loss and there’s no guarantee that New Normal will be as comfortable as the old one. It certainly won’t be as innocent.
But that’s how stories work. That’s how life works.
We are living the story right now. None of us knows quite what will happen next. Soon, we will begin to tell the story of how we survived - and even thrived - in 2020.
Can I help you tell your story as we all set out on this Hero’s Journey together?
The next round of Stand In Your Sovereign Story begins on September 30, and I would love to have you with us.
