Identity

Recently I was at the dentist‘s. On the waiting room walls hung sepia photos of paragon teeth on young people beaming perfect smiles, showing an identical, impeccable set, as if it was fitted on each model, one at a time for a shot. I guess, the best forensic experts would be stumped when trying to identify each individual.

For my appointment I requested assistant Maria, a youthful looking Latin woman of 60, (she confided in me that morning) who could easily pass for 48; some people shake off time like a woolen cloth an accidental wrinkle. Apart from her pleasant looks and demeanor, I associate Maria with the most pleasant dental procedure of my life. The hero was dr. Winden, a girlish looking woman with gentle hands and sensitivity of an angel. How many people can say, they had a pleasant experience at a dentist’s? Aren’t we all tense just at the high pitched “zees” of the drill, before a hint of pain. Yet, dr. Winden’s performance left me with the memory of a calm grace and gentleness. When it was all done, I asked her not to move away, or to let me know if she did. As fate would have it, she left that establishment the next week.






It’s no surprise, that the sitcom's “Cheers” opening song “. . . where everybody knows my name” struck a resonant cord in “everybody.” I wonder at people worshipping New York, which wipes out one’s identity. I assume, there the lost personal identity is sublimated in the supersize of everything: buildings, masses of people, traffic, entertainment – the dynamics of a metropolis, where the individual doesn’t matter. I understand that the bigness and overflowing of New York can drench one's senses in glitz or drown them in anonymity. I passed through NY when I first landed in US in 1970, feeling its intensity and excitement; I knew then, it was not for me. I still haven’t had a bite of the "big apple." Now I might feel differently, except that now it takes even less to stimulate my creative "juices" – producing lasting effects.