DELORIS | It was my brain, not me!

The needle points to “normal”, but when a Bok in top condition is sent for head injury assessment, you can see the needle has shifted.

When it’s real, they seem to argue about not leaving the field, and medics have to be quite firm in getting these woozy warriors to a medical examination.

When you are old — congrats you made it that far! — your brain also starts to shift and the ballies can get a little bamboozled.

Point is, the needle that points to normality is ever-changing, buffeted by winds of time, fate and human folly — when you fell on your head from a tree, grew up and hit it on a low doorframe, went a bit bossies in the war, woke with a hangover which turned morning into afternoon, drove the newborn out into the country feeling dark, lost, unbelievably tired and drifty, that’s PPD or post-partum depression, hooked the front wheel of the KLR bike on top of Winterberg and fell on your head at 40km/h.

What is this “normality”?

Best explanation I could find was the constitution — something we all agree on in SA, but not in America where I think it is lost under the derrière of the giant orange pumpkin.

People, there really is no normality.

What we do have are social bonds, friendship, family, community and, according to sociologists such as Emile Durkheim, when these bonds start to fray or fall away, the wheel of normality starts to spin like a roulette wheel.

Where the needle lands is so often in the land of the great unknown.

But, if you are lucky denizen, you will reach a ripe old age where the old pumping organ known as your brain will start to develop a wobble or “motspur” — that wheel on the shopping trolley that jams and now you are doing a strange, mutant moonwalk, sending specials flying in the local supermarket.

A more irritating, discombobulating experience is hard to find.

There is a housing complex for seniors which has, in the past, encouraged wildlife.

That has changed, and now, as it goes in these places, after years of wonderful encounters with impalas, owls and the many critters of nature which cling to the remaining 23% of habitat, they must go.

The nets are up for the bokkies. Ballies look on in distress and they wonder how, when the net drops, these much-loved antelope will cope in the wild. .

These bokkies are symbolic survivors — 77% of wildlife globally has been slaughtered by the grader blades, bullets, bombs, drills, belching plants, pesticide sprayers and the plastic shopping bags of profit-seeking, eco-cannibalising humanity.

There appears to be no formal reason for the forced removal of the animals, but the residents who love nature and spend time communing with the wildlife finding it hugely inspirational, full of hope and good endorphins, say there was apparently a complaint that the buck were eating the plants, among them roses.

You may love roses, and they may be beautiful, fragrant and mesmerising. But they are a colonial imposition, and they suck a load of space and water from our incredible indigenous garden of Eden.

To plant them in the ground, a load of indigenous plants had to be cleared out.

Roses as predators? Sorry Romeo. 

And yet, a deeper discussion with the wildlife conservationists in the senior centre uncovers a deeper story.

It is sadder than sad. I hope it is an exaggeration for a good cause, but here goes.

I am told of more senior residents who are far from venerated for their wisdom, their collective institutional memory, their link between past and future, 

who are burdened with loss — many have lost a life partner, and are in some kind of state of mourning.

They are also experiencing a general loosening of social bonds, kids may not be around as much, there is a growing shadow.

How is this ameliorated? Screen time, I am told.

And when these seniors spend all day in front of a television, trapped in social narrative of “retirement” — fake news if ever — and bad things happen,

small problems become enormous and now these pathologies start to fester, and, eventually, the bokkies have got to go.

I am driving in and out of such a complex, and I see the most stunning indigenous and decorative gardens, small yes, but rich and imaginative.

I see people out walking, some with small dogs.

I see all manner of facilities, programmes, systems which make these complexes amazing.

And into this enormous array of relationships and issues that cut to the core of humanity at its best — compassion, tolerance, understanding, flexibility, innovation, determination, unbelievable courage and pathos — into all of this comes ... your brain.

One thinker on Instagram, wow, that is a reliable source! speaks about how we have many lives in one life.

If I had not arrived there before him, I would not believe it. But I do.

Think of your life, from birth to well, wherever you are now.

How many different yous are there? You the toddler, the under 10, the teen, the 20-something, 30-something, the 40-, 50-,60-,70-,80-, and gosh, the 90-year-old.

Epochs, eras all with their great discoveries and experiences, joys, traumas, and only one thing is universal, you and your brain.

I have watched this brain drift away, seen the dial spin from normal to new normal, old normal, weird normal until, honestly, what the hell is normal?

In this time with people whose brains have decided to shrivel like a walnut, I have also seen them take off like cirrus streaking across the blue sky above the waters off Orient Beach this morning.

And what of those who must provide care, love and support for those among us who are tuned into another radio station? It’s gruelling with moments of raucous mirth.

Life is changing, alliances are shifting, so many dynamics being expressed on the truly underwhelming station called normality.

So little insight to be gained, so much conflict and distress, it’s very painful.

How do we deal with this? I have few ideas, but one I latched on was to distinguish between Deloris and “Deloris’s brain” — the one who lost the keys, who tossed away broth and put the spent remains in the fridge, who repeats stories within minutes of telling them.

That is not Deloris, that is Deloris’s brain, and I pray that this simple recognition will bring some perspective and relief and tolerance.

Not for Deloris or their brain, but for the poor caregiving souls who must endure this wandering away from normalcy.

For those who love to bluster on about alternative behaviour as an affront to normality, please explain why in the last 3,400 years humans have been at peace for only 268 years, just 8% of this time, according to the New York Times.

Can this possibly be normal? Or rather, which Neanderthals would have us accept it as normal?

Indeed, there is some debate on whether Neanderthals actually went extinct because their brains did not grow as did those of the more self-reflective, sophisticated homo sapiens.

Anyway, when we like to think of ourselves as civilised, normal, rational, logical, humans, think again.

I am more inclined to think of ourselves as striving to be a thoughtful, evolving, revolutionary, innovative species seeking to find collaborative, affirming, compassionate, forms of intelligent life.

It’s called love.

I find that exciting, thrilling even.