A Return to Normalcy
Why the appeal of the normal is so enticing in times of crisis
It seems like almost an eternity ago that we first heard of a new coronavirus that snaked out from China to stretch nearly across the entire world. In reality, it’s only been a few months, a period of time that somehow defies all normal perception. Now, people in nearly every state are sheltered in their homes waiting, hoping, and praying for this storm to pass.
One of the most universal human desires during this time — one that I feel sharply — is a return to normality. It’s spring right now, a time when nature seems to come alive again and the outside world seems to beckon us with open arms. To live through a pandemic during this time almost feels wrong, as if this virus has stolen the joy of nature and rebirth.
We long to return to our everyday lives and patterns, whether that’s church, work, walking in parks, or any other regular kind of human activity. That wish — to return to normalcy — is something that’s extremely common in human history. It’s especially common in the history of America and there are more examples than I could possibly hope to ever catalog in any format. But let’s look at a few of them right now, because they speak to our current situation. And one day, just like Americans of the past, we will return to regular life, too.
In 1920, just after the end of World War I, presidential candidate Warren G. Harding gave a speech in Boston that would end up defining much of his presidency. He said, “America’s present need is not heroics, but healing; not nostrums, but normalcy; not revolution, but restoration.” Harding later won the election of 1920 (by a massive margin) on the promise of a “return to normalcy.”
America had just lived through a conflict like no other: the First World War. That conflict seems insignificant compared to World War II, but it defined the lives of millions of Americans and Europeans when it happened, showing the world destruction on a scale nobody thought possible. In the wake of that war — to say nothing of the Spanish Flu pandemic — Americans wanted comfort, peace, and a return to the lives they had led before. Harding promised to grant that wish.
Harding went down in history as a fairly inconspicuous president, though one who presided over a period of unprecedented success and prosperity in America. Aside from the serious Teapot Dome scandal (which I’ll save for another time), he was pretty popular. America suffered a brief recession from 1920–1921, but by the time of Harding’s death in 1923 the economy was steadily growing, on a trajectory to the highest peaks it would hit later that decade.
It’s easy to understand why Americans wanted a more normal decade in the 1920s and even easier to imagine their relief and joy when one arrived. The “Roaring 20s” may have paved the way for the Great Depression, but this was also the explosion of the automobile, the radio, and professional baseball. Historian James West Davidson wrote, “With millions of people making cars, building roads, and constructing skyscrapers, Americans experienced a higher standard of living than ever before.”
Over three-quarters of a century later, in September of 2001, terrorist attacks in New York shocked Americans and disrupted normal life. Airports shut down, people stayed home, and even Major League Baseball stopped the playoffs. All things considered, this crisis passed pretty quickly. But it was a new threat that most Americans had never even considered before. In its aftermath, there was a similar thirst for normalcy.
Americans (fittingly, New Yorkers in particular) found that normalcy in the 2001 World Series between the New York Yankees and the Arizona Diamondbacks. Delayed because of the national catastrophe, the games picked back up in late October. If this were a movie, the Yankees would have won the World Series. They didn’t, but the fact that baseball — perhaps our nation’s most enduring way to spend free time — kept going brought hope enough to many people.
Baseball was something for the country to watch together; it was something for everyone to rally around. 2001’s contest was the first World Series to extend into November, a reminder of the events that briefly stopped play. Even baseball wasn’t immune from outside catastrophe. But when the games returned, fans in the stands watched the president throw out an opening pitch. Yankees shortstop Derek Jeter famously warned President Bush to throw a good pitch, saying, “Don’t bounce it. They’ll boo ya.”
It’s tempting to say that baseball (or really, any sport or activity) can paper over tragedy. The tableau of thousands of screaming fans in a baseball stadium, coming together to watch a game, doesn’t take away the pain, or death felt by so many more. Whether that’s thousands who died in a terrorist attack, hundreds of thousands who died in a war, or an unknown number from a pandemic, distractions can only do so much. But if time can heal wounds, returning to how we normally spend it is the first step.
Many Americans found comfort in Harding’s promise of a more normal America in the wake of the worst conflict the world had ever seen. They drove cars, they listened radios, and they to watched movies. In 2001, after witnessing an attack they never would have thought possible, Americans found comfort in watching baseball. The little comforts of normal life are a powerful healing tool, a reminder that life will still go on, at some point.
In April of 2020, those remedies aren’t available to us right now. We can’t gather in groups, so sports are off-limits. The leagues want to come back, but their path to actually getting back on fields and into arenas isn’t clear. We don’t know when it will be safe to go back to normal life, and that uncertainty may be the most difficult part of this ordeal for many people sequestered in their houses and apartments across the nation. We’ll get back to normal, or at least a new normal, one day, but we don’t know when that will be.
But the pandemic will end one day. The world may be forever changed because of COVID-19. But one day, we will come out of our homes. We will go to school, to work, to church. It may be hard to visualize what that day will look like right now, but it is coming. And when it does, many of us will cherish this return. We won’t take a baseball game, a gathering of friends, or any other communal activity for granted.
The views expressed are mine alone and do not represent the views of my employer or any other person or organization.
