Reclaiming Me, Myself and I

The phrase finding oneself is a patchouli-scented keepsake.

The more ‘90s reinventing oneself is still a shade whimsical but somewhat less open-ended.

But how many of us, if placed face to face with the unexpected task of reshaping or reclaiming identity, can gracefully rise to the task?

This isn’t some empty philosophical question to be pondered over a muddy demitasse of espresso. One’s existence is more precarious than most might think.

For some reason, I’ve had a lot of practice in this region. One dark morning, propelled by my pre-New Year’s Eve “new me” mission, I pulled on the requisite leggings and sweat shirt, collected my Walkman and cassettes spilling with spirited anthems, then groped for my sunglasses, keys and my wal . . . wallet: “My wallet!?”

Even though big-city living has relieved me of my wallet at least four times in the last seven years, the unceremonious act of suddenly misplacing my identity isn’t quite what boosters of the most radical version of reinvention have in mind.

Now fully awake, heart thumping, yet committed not to panic, I fly down to the car to check the nasty nooks and crannies. Instead I pull out a long-lost essential Thomas Brothers page worked free from the spirals, a favorite fountain pen (now melted into a shiny black lump), a waxy french fry and spare change. (I even pocket the oxidized pennies--it’ll be a while before my ATM card privileges are restored.)

All my efforts are for naught--my lovely vegan-friendly, green-leatheresque wallet is nowhere to be found.

Has it fallen out of my suitcase of a purse? Into the gutter? Under my bed? Was I pickpocketed?

I call last night’s dinner companion, who (fortunately) dedicates her silent, early hours to crafting verse. She remembers me paying my share of the bill, but not my tucking the billfold back into its proper place. The rest comes to her slowly, vividly . . . a crowd of people sitting close behind me, my purse carelessly draped on the back of the chair. . . .

I call the restaurant, a ridiculously trendy trattoria I often haunt after work because it serves late dinners and offers a lively clientele. Even though it’s only 7:30 a.m., I hope to catch the morning cleaning crew. But the voice on the other end answers my frantic questions in Spanish--until it tires of my inability to make myself clear, my needs known. Then suddenly with an efficient click, the party on the other side disengages the line.

I rouse yet another friend, who in his sleep mutters magic words: una cartera verde. Feeling victorious I make the call again, but this time no one responds.

I’m already beginning to shrink out of view.

I know how the rest of the day will go. As well as the day to follow, and the days after that, as I try to navigate the city without a name--or at least some concrete way to prove it. Already I’m imagining the endless maze to reclaiming myself: lines long, patience short, faces grim.

*

Making this journey provides the perfect arena for pondering what it might have been like when on your word, or family name, you could tool around without a hitch. People took you at face.

Nowadays, the plastic cards with raised letters and numbers and laminated pieces of paper with stamp-sized photographs are powerful tools that proclaim and/or verify existence. When all of that is stripped away, you realize how precarious it is to be. How much stock we put in an identity forged in plastic. And how quickly it can be lost.

There is a gamble, quite ill-advised although tempting. Do you call and cancel everything immediately (as most credit-card companies advise)? A frightening thought to watch your safety net rolled away, exposing a chasm of uncertainty. Or do you wait? Perchance some kind, selfless soul will return your hard-won credit history in tact.

It happens: A couple years back, a man found my wallet and refused to accept a reward. He saw so little cash stashed inside that he figured, “Now here’s a woman who needs her stuff back.”

Rather than cast your lot with the “kindness” of strangers, it’s best to pick up the phone and a tall, cool drink and prepare to settle in for the long haul. For a time I kept a tidy list of credit-card account and phone numbers in an accordion file. But during some rare ambitious spring-cleaning episode, they were misplaced--no doubt forever lost.

Then I simply started saving the paper wrapped around the brand-new charge cards, the numbers conveniently printed out on the page. Those too more than likely went out with the trash.

Hoping to make the process easier the next time around (since there would be a next time for sure), I signed up for one of those credit-card services promising that one call will stop them all. But after paying the annual fee for a few years, when I finally needed to use them--adding insult to injury--they had no record of me.

*

The piece of ID often restored most rapidly are bank cards. Some companies will Federal Express them if you’re really in a tight spot--on some exotic island, marooned in an airport. These patient phone representatives (many of whom could easily moonlight in crisis intervention) coolly counsel you in the early stages of your madness, suggesting that those cards should be the first thing you cancel along with your ATM card.

What they don’t tell you is that you should request two ATM cards--one for checking and one for savings--and keep them separate. If you lose one, at least there’s a way to withdraw some cash to float you.

The driver’s license routine is a bit trickier. The DMV charges you $12 to reclaim yourself, so figure out how to scare up the funds before you arrive.

Banks are a ring of hell of their own. Mine (as do many) requires that you return to the home branch (no matter how far you have moved away from it, no matter how far you have to drive without a license to get to it).

*

Amid the storm of the crisis, however, there is something liberating about wandering freely without an identity. I’ve known people who have likened it to having a lost weekend. Some feel heady with the rush of being able to cancel cards completely, retake a driver’s license photo that has elicited snide comments from store clerks and barkeeps.

For others it is reminiscent of those dreams of wandering around some inappropriate public place without a stitch of clothing. One feels exposed, barer-than-naked, without the “documents” to prove your place on the planet. It forces one to realize how much we rely on these pieces of paper and plastic to state what should be obvious.

This bare-bones, scrubbed-free vulnerability in some ways resurrects something long-lost and essential: fusing connections and reinventing the concept of trust. A trust established simply by peering into someone’s eyes. Drowning in bar codes, magnetic strips, thumb prints and “proper” picture IDs, “identity” has become something far removed from the person.

When people ask for ID, they seldom study the face, the cast of one’s eyes, the slope of a chin. It’s whether or not your signature matches, or your birth date makes you legal, or “Is this your current address?”

Yet blooming within that vast loss, one gains something infinitely more substantial--rekindling the human connection, the strength and clarity to firmly state one’s identity--the power to be.

Amid the storm of the crisis, however, there is something liberating about wandering freely without an identity. I’ve known people who have likened it to having a lost weekend.