WHO AM I?

I was involved in a conversation a few days ago in which a friend commented that Sun City Grand was the perfect place in which to reinvent yourself.  Of course, I think she's absolutely right when you consider this community didn't exist until 1996 when it slowly emerged from abandoned cotton fields or citrus groves or whatever crop had flourished here.  Consequently, everyone is, by necessity, from somewhere else.  In our average sized cul-de-sac, one couple moved in from New Jersey, while their neighbor came from Wisconsin.  The youngish couple on the corner are from California and their immediate neighbors arrived from Colorado. We, of course, drove in from Kansas, and the couple on our left are from Scottsdale.  Don't scoff at that geographic anomaly.  Scottsdale is every bit as distant from Surprise as is New Jersey.  It's a culture thing.

But, back to the reinvention comment.  Unfortunately, I didn't think about reinventing myself as I was packing to leave Dodge City.  Quite possibly, I was barely aware that someone outside of the Federal Witness Protection Program could, or would, really do that.  And, if I had been alert enough to think of it, who in the world would I have become?

My first thought, most likely, would have leaned toward becoming my older sister.  She's a bit taller than I, a little slimmer, much more patient, more of an extrovert, and always looks as if she just walked away from a Ralph Lauren magazine layout.  Unfortunately, however, I'm a bit too short-waisted to carry off the Ralph Lauren thing, so we'll scratch that one.

Had I pulled myself together in time, I might have reinvented myself as my favorite Food Network person, Ina Garten, the Barefoot Contessa.  I love Ina Garten.  She is so calm as she cooks.  She doesn't race frantically around the kitchen fighting off a panic attack.  She never screams at her sweet husband.  She simply stands at her counter tossing another slab of butter in the mixer or a cup of cream into the bubbling pot on her cooktop. Occasionally, she wanders out to her herb garden and drinks in that East Hampton ambiance before she serenely greets her guests.  Could I carry that off in Arizona?  It would take a lot of Zanax.   

Maybe, since I had definitely come late to the party, I could simply have re-styled my background and called that a reinvention.  Kind of like rearranging the living room instead of buying that new divan. What background would I have chosen?  I don't know.  I really don't know. The problem is that when you're born, raised and live nearly all your life in the semi-arid southwestern quarter of Kansas, in a town known for multiple feedyards (100s of 1000s of cattle--no joke) and two immense cattle slaughter plants (unfortunately, it's about the only thing you can do with that many cattle) it's hard to carry off any vibe that doesn't shout "Midwest Plain Girl!"  Now I'm glad I didn't even try.  It sounds glamorous, but I think it would have taken a lot of work, and this is retirement, for heaven's sake.