remaking your image

remake

Remaking Your Image

To no small extent it’s a matter of posture. The full-lotus isn’t your best option, in fact it’s a bad choice. Better is to lean against a lamp post with your hands in your pockets. At night of course, in a circle of street light, on an empty street.

Here’s where attire comes in. Nothing will do but a Zoot suit. Never mind that they’re out of fashion–it’s because of the pants, loose and long with deep pockets. For your hands, remember? Jamming your hands into the pockets of tight jeans cancels everything. The jacket, double-breasted and wide in the shoulders, is a consequence of the need for deep pockets, which is a consequence of the posture you’ve chosen. So are the spats and the wide-rimmed hat. Imagine where you’d be if you’d chosen the lotus position. Sitting on a straw mat in a zendo with your legs in a tangle, staring at a wall.

You can take one hand out of its pocket now. You have a gold watch chain looped from your suede belt into a watch pocket. You lift the watch from its pocket by its chain and swing it idly like a pendulum. You do this while still leaning against the lamp post, one foot crossed over the other. Then you pull the watch up into your hand.

It’s a numerical watch with Roman numerals, the kind you wind. It’s circular and silver and intricately engraved. It has a hinged cover over its face that you flip back with your thumb.

You take in the hour and snap the cover closed again, drop the watch back in its pocket and push off from the lamp post.

You glide out of the circle of light into the night.

You’ve become someone people take seriously.

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