Keeping Up with the Joneses
On Primrose Lane, where the hedges are neat,
Live the Joneses,
the model of life so complete.
Their lawn is
trimmed, their car is new,
Their recycling
sorted into colour-coded blue.
They nod politely,
they bake on command,
Attend Pilates with
a water bottle in hand.
Their dog wears a
jumper, their children wear tweed,
They brunch at
eleven and rarely misread.
Their curtains
match their neighbour’s gate,
Their bin goes out
at exactly eight.
They hum the hymn
of polite routine…
Oh yes, they keep
their conscience clean.
For life, you see,
is all about pace…
Keeping up with the
cultural race.
Fit in, stand tall,
smile nice and wide,
Suppress that
twitch you feel inside.
But just across the
street, if you dare to look,
Live the curious
clan of the Widdersmith Brook.
(Yes, the Not
Keeping Up with the Widdersmiths, it’s true…
They’re as strange
as a hedgehog in a barbeque.)
They hang
wind-chimes from their apple tree,
Serve herbal tea at
half-past three.
They sing to
mushrooms, they talk to stones,
And write haiku
poems on garden gnomes.
They wear odd socks
and mismatched shoes,
Paint their shed in
philosophical hues.
They quote Jung at
dinner, dance barefoot in rain,
And laugh when it’s
awkward… without any shame.
They don’t own a
smartwatch, don’t follow the trends,
They make soup with
nettles and call foxes friends.
They’ve never once
hosted a gender reveal,
And don’t know the
value of a three-course meal.
Their kids are
raised on kindness and dreams,
Not rankings or
gold-star reward schemes.
And when asked,
“Why don’t you just fit in?”
They smile and say,
“But where would we begin?”
See, the Joneses
are lovely, in their tidy way,
But they live in a
loop that repeats each day.
The Widdersmiths,
though strange and wild,
Live life by the
rhythm of the soul’s own child.
So ask yourself
now, as equinox nears,
Do you conform to
applause… or your own inner cheers?
Do you chase
approval or follow your bliss…
Would you rather be
a Jones… or a Widdersmith?
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