Is Different Normal?

Be daring, be different, be impractical, be anything that will assert integrity of purpose and imaginative vision against the play-it-safers, the creatures of the commonplace, the slaves of the ordinary.

~Cecil Beaton

Is it normal to be different?

I recently had a previous neighbor say to me..."We don't think differently of you for what you're doing." She was referring to our lifestyle and it was said in a way to assure us that she didn't think less of us. I thought it an odd thing to say. After all, why would you think differently of us? And why would different be less? I guess for all my joking of my house having a steering wheel I never stopped to think that someone might really think that quality of life is poorer living this way.

So we don't live normal according to suburban American standards; however, consider the idea that only 300 million people live in the US. Are the other 5,700,000,000 million people abnormal? I know alot of Fox News fans might be surprised by this thought!

1. We live in a small space, about 300 square feet. The average home size in the UK is 850 square feet, Tokyo is about 600 square feet and it's even less than that in some areas of China and India. And let's not even mention the fact that there are usually more than three people living in these small spaces. These are numbers that make execs at IKEA squeal with joy.

2. Our son sleeps on a custom made couch the size of a twin bed. It could be a cot on a dirt floor (which would probably make him very happy). He doesn't have to share it with anyone except Mr. Bears. There is no mosquito net needed...but I feel certain there's at least two squooshed yogurt raisens somewhere in it. He isn't awakened by urban noises he would hear if he were in a city like Tokyo or Rome (but there was this one campground right beside a train that kind of freaked him out a few times in the night).

3. We'll probably roadschool/homeschool our son (unless he surpasses my capacity about mid way through 1st grade). It is estimated that up to 2 million children in the US are homeschooled. Once again, there are 5,700,000,000 other people in the world not included in that figure.

4. My convection oven can't hold a pizza larger than 12 inches. But it can burn the hell out of just about anything. My fridge can only hold a whole chicken if we eat nothing else and my freezer can't handle the amount of chicken I'd really like to buy when it's on sale for $2.99. But it has two crisper drawers, a meat locker and even a cool little slide out thing to make room for my wine bottles. My kitchen faucet is the low, old timey kind. But this has nothing to d0 with living in the RV and I'm praying very hard that it soon breaks so I can justify a cooler one. It is a privelege not shared around the world to have clean running water and a coffee maker.

5. Our yard changes often. Over 18 million people live in New York City and very few of them mow a yard. We don't pick weeds or buy fertilizer and we can grown our herbs just fine inside. Unless you put them in the front window and they get fried and shrivel up and die.

6. We have to dump our poop tank. OK, so this one I can't turn into a positive but I've heard stories that lots of people around the world poop in a hole.

So if normal means the way most people do it, seems that we are closer to normal than most suburban Americans.

This neighbor lady opened my eyes. She made me aware that there are people out there that really think what we're doing isn't all that cool. She defined the word "different" as a negative and she prided herself on accepting us even though we didn't do it her way. I guess there are some people that are just different than us.