That Isn't You

The title for That Isn't You is inspired by a comment made by my mother concerning a video transcribed from an old eight-millimeter film. In a still shot, isolated from a single frame of the moving picture, I am riding high on my uncle John's shoulders. When Mother saw the photograph she said "that isn't you," meaning she could not imagine a day from the past when I would have had that kind of relationship with my father's elder brother, the bachelor farmer who lived in our house.

In the photograph I am obviously delighted and thrilled and full with the joy of riding high on my six-foot-two uncle's shoulders. So, her phrase got me to thinking about "identity" and how we see ourselves, how we are seen by others who might claim to know us well, how we are seen by friends and familiars, how we are seen by strangers, both in chance meetings, and in brief encounters, how we are seen after we pass away when the living refuse to acknowledge what I call 'the full grumble of the dear departed." The true self, the persona, the disconnection between the masks we so often wear to show the world what we wish to reveal, and the face behind the mask. As an aging man I sometimes feel I shave a stranger every morning. I catch a glimpse of my own reflection and wonder, "Who are you?" I was once startled beyond words by being greeted at a family picnic by a seldom-seen relative, "So, how is my sexy cousin doing?" Surely, she could not mean yours truly. It was quite embarrassing because I think she thought I saw myself that way, when it could never be further from the truth.