"There Are Places I Remember..."

(taken from my porch today)

I have blogged before in my belief that we are constantly creating our image. That the various consumer choices we make are mainly concerned with an image we hold in our mind’s eye of who we are, who we wish to be, how we wish to be seen by the world. I have suggested that even in an attempt to not be brand conscious or image conscious we are still polishing a projected image.

And so I sit here sipping my coffee in my home on a sunny cold February day, pondering the image that I cherish and wondering what it says about my self.

It is a glorious day. The sun is shining brightly casting a new look on the snow worn landscape. This is a second day of rest following a rather grueling week at work. I actually feel rested. I sit here on the sleeper loveseat in my back parlor, sunshine lounging over my shoulder. Abby Cat has taken up residence in my Lazy Boy recliner thus forcing this new perspective on the room.

I am wearing lounge pants, a gift from my mom for Christmas, a t-shirt, and my Mr. Rogers, smoky blue, lambs wool cardigan with missing button and cat fur. My pain isn’t so bad today - it really seems to correlate with how damp it is outside and today must be rather dry at 9 degrees F. The computer is on my lap and I examine my foot resting across my knee. The foot is calloused with numerous small varicose veins between the ankle bone and heel. It is no longer the foot of a young man, looking more and more like my father’s worn aged feet. The skin on my hands is clearly losing its youthful elasticity, liver spots are forming.

The house itself, this log cabin in the woods, is very quiet. The dogs make their grunts and whines, their nails clicking on the tile. The furnace fan quietly whirs in the background. The silence is medicinal.

This is an image that I craft for myself. Portly middle aged intellectual wannabe. Mussed hair. Tortoise shell glasses with a retro feel. Books everywhere. Animals in abundance. Sipping coffee and catching up on my back issues of The Nation. Unvacuumed carpet. Unwashed dishes. Unmade bed. Undusted furniture. As I putter today I feel nothing so much as contentment.

I will have company in another week or so for the U.P. 200 Sled Dog Race weekend. That requires me to periodically interject chores into my routine. Wash some dishes, clean the toilet, sweep the floor. With a purpose to motivate me these chores are also part of the contentment. I will have visitors to my milieu, witnesses to my carefully crafted image, an acknowledgement by the world of who I am.

In the midst of all this was a recognition that I might lose it all one day and that thought gave me a moment’s pause. Like most of middle America I am but a few paychecks away from financial ruin. As a single individual, a devastating illness will leave me homeless. I have no spouse’s income to fall back on. In this brave new world we live in even a hospital will terminate you after you have used up your twelve weeks of protected medical leave. At that point we are “protected” by COBRA - yet how is an unemployed individual to make those payments? And so in a matter of months, all this could disappear.

For many of us it already has disappeared. Millions more are facing foreclosure. I fear that what we are calling a “Recession” as if eventually we will get back to normal, is in fact a “Correction” and The Corporate States of America has just cut out a large chunk of us saying, “We don’t need you any more as cash cows - we’re looking to China. Good luck.” For many Americans, their images have been permanently shattered and destroyed.

I do not know if I will be able to afford this log home when I retire, if I am able to retire. Perhaps I will be fortunate enough to sell for a profit if I wait long enough and move myself into a small bungalow in town and my image will alter slightly rather than catastrophically. One can hope. Peace.