Retrench!

The snow brushes up violently against my face as I hurried home from a job interview I was ambivalent about. In the interview a written test was asked. Out of 28 questions, I had to guess the answers to four. I refrained from beating myself up for the four I did not know. A thought occurred that I might not land a job that I’m not sure I even want. A feeling of being hemmed in came over me. One gets that when one feels options are diminishing.

Retrenchment is now reality. The first time I heard this word, it was in Persuasion, the movie based on Jane Austen's book. The heroine Anne's free-spending sister, Elizabeth, positively balked when her father brought up the need to cut down on family spending. Elizabeth's voice is full of disgust at the indignity of this practice: "Retrench?@!" Must we, she exclaimed! Yes, it seems we must.

Life has to happen this way for reality to set in. The imperious me meets the improvising me. In my head, I know I will resurrect myself. In actuality, cutting down hurts. If 2008 was the year of shock and sense-making, 2009 must then be the year of retrenchment.

In yesterday's New York Times, Karl Lagerfeld commented about the financial pressures of luxury purveyors and exclaimed that a "new modesty" is called for. This week's mantra comes from him: "There is no creative evolution if you don't have dramatic moments like this."