Is this normal?

Tiring week full of long nights of work, and one night of great fun…We will belittle it as fun, we will belittle it as something that had to be done, we will not speak of it again in any way, and we may or may not have another chance…but now after the fact, in my own time and space, and with my own ‘port and lemon’ in me I can call it what it deserves to be called…a great moment of human contact…I don’t mean sex. Life is short and, at times, lonely so when there is someone to share a moment of intimacy, even if (or perhaps because) that word is not uttered, one should celebrate it. Rejoice in the glory of being able to share a touch, a feeling, an unnamed purpose…and that’s what this paragraph is about, no games, no script, no past nor a future…just the present…a present from which you wake up and wonder if it ever happened.

Went to my local pub tonight…The Palm Tree…an East End gem…where on Friday and Saturday nights East End old geezers and birds sing Rat Pack and Cole Porter. It was marvellous. A quite night by Palm Tree standards but wonderful soundtrack to two friends struggling to hear what the other is saying…’The man I love’ sang my favourite local singer, a woman of an advanced age and walking stick, with short hair and long earrings, huge boobs and deep man’s voice courtesy of years of smoking…

At one point as my friend was talking, I drifted away from what she was saying and started wondering how is it that the air that trembles through her vocal chords and travels through the air reaches my ears and then to my brain and gets converted into understanding. Those few seconds when I wondered about that there was nothing more important in the world. Is this normal?

Then I came home, sitting on my sofa, I heard a bus stop at the bus stop nearby, open doors, close doors and pull away. I could not see the bus but I sat here wondering about the people who must be in it. Who are they? Where are they coming from? Where are they going? Did they have a good night out or have they just been made redundant or dumped? Are they awake thinking about thinks or have they fallen asleep? I sat here wondering all this and feeling almost physically there on the bus. Is this normal?

I see planes approaching to land at City Airport and circling above London to land at Heathrow. I’ve lived in the same flat more than 10 years. But only recently I’ve begun to look and wonder who are in them? I began to feel transported into the plane, seeing the stewardess walking the aisles making sure everyone has their seat belt on. I began to see the faces of each and every passenger, wondered where they are coming from and why and who they are. Is this normal?

I’ve been doing this a lot lately…living the present to a fuller degree than I’ve ever done before yet wondering about the countless lives that pass me by in that very present, lives that I will never know. What stories do they hold? What is it that makes them get up every morning, get dressed and go out and go very far out at times? What is it that makes my mind extend like a telescope and transport me to where they are? What is it that makes me wonder all this?

Is this normal?

Feels like it’s not.
Feels like it’s the start of some psychosomatic situation.
Feels good.

Is this normal?