The new normal

When my English club stood up to close this week’s meeting by singing “Hello, Goodbye,” I thought about how we would look to an outsider:

Me, in front of 19 middle school-aged Beninese students, wearing pants in traditional fabric, plus my bright yellow dry-fit shirt from last year’s half marathon. My postmate’s dog is at my feet. He has just spent the better part of the meeting doing laps around the classroom with his tongue hanging out and scaring every student he approached. My postmate was in the back, dirty from that day’s bike rides and had just finished a conversation with a French teacher about how we elect presidents in the US.

I thought about my role in this ragtag group signing the Beatles and wondered when exactly this had become normal to me.