My twin is 70 years, how old is yours?
Twins. This is a favourite word in the Dictionary of Love. Some
prefer ‘soul mate’ to ‘twin’. It’s all about being two bodies but one
heart, one mind, one way of thinking and being and feeling and loving.
For a while at least. No, don’t call me a cynic. There is no such thing
as seamless twinning. We are ‘one’ but only for a while, the length of
‘while’ varying from couple of couple based on a number of factors the
enumeration of which is not my purpose here.
I think everyone has a twin. Indeed everyone shares ‘one-ness’ with
many, from time to time, depending on different context and at the
confluence of different moment-streams. There are moments when you look
up and find someone looking at you, when gaze is stopped by gaze and you
know, instantly, that there’s perfect understanding, agreement, approval
and appreciation of word or action. There are moments when hearts
converge, when thoughts coincide and words are spoken together without
rehearsal. You don’t say or think ‘whisper’ but there is a
heart-gladdening that prompts smile.
Solitary creatures
So we have ‘today-twins’, ‘this-moment-twins’ and can talk about
twins who were and twins who perhaps might be and even talk about twins
who stay longer than expected and twins who left all too soon.
The problem is that we human beings are such solitary creatures who
find it so hard to live with ourselves that it is a hundred thousand
times harder to live with someone else. We wish, often, that there’s
someone who understands us. We wish we had a twin.
Unfortunately, very few have biological twins and those other twins I
spoke about above are fickle creatures. Twinning by circumstance is such
a transient phenomenon that we often recognize it after the fact.
This is not a bad thing, for no one can claim that life is about
being understood and related twin-moments. As far as coincidences go,
twinning-overlaps are quaint, they make us tingle in strange ways and
even entertain notions of worthiness that are so different and rewarding
than title-conferring, salary hikes and position-advancement. They are
rare.
All love stories have somewhere in them magical moments that are
twin-made or twin-making. Twinning, however, is not a phenomenon that
occurs in that magical land called Love.
Magical moments
There is, for example, the story of Mansur Al Hallaj, who, while
being stoned for the crime of blaspheme, danced and sang out the truth
of his convictions, ‘Ana al Haq, Ana al Haq, Ana al Haq’ (I am God).
Stone after stone after stone rained on him. There must have been blood.
He had laughed. Until someone tossed a rose. A hundred stones. One
rose. A hundred who did not understand. One twin. Sublime. A moment for
pause. Tear. It was the twinning moment that stopped song, tripped
dancer and erased smile; the moment of shared blaspheme, the ultimate
praise of and inhabiting of divinity in a holy complicity and immortal
union.
The moment we identify with someone, some thing, some moment, we find
a twin, a twinning. Our twins therefore do not necessarily share age and
cradle, they don’t necessarily wear the same clothes or walk together
hand in hand. Some twin moments are sublime, like the one related above.
Some are not. Like the one below.
Unsung people
I received a letter. I have never met Shirani Pinto. She lives in
Panadura. She tells me that she reads this column everyday. She referred
to an article that appeared on October 28, 2010 (‘On heart-unbuckling’):
‘(it) touched me so deeply that I had to thank in writing for churning
my emotions on this wonderful theme of love.’
I have never met her but I feel she would have felt ‘twin’ in those
words. That should be enough, but what twinned her more in my
imagination was the following:
‘I look forward to your day’s writing just the way I used to read the
back page (sports) of the Daily News first throughout my 50 years of
newspaper reading.’ That’s how I read newspapers. That’s the only way I
know how to read newspapers. It was the sports page that contained
anything that I could relate to as a child.
She continued: ‘I am 70 years (and) very much into reading since 12,
mostly what touches me are way-out thoughts of unsung people.’ I write
not to sing the unsung but to express my amazement at the music embedded
in human lives.
Shirani Pinto, 70 years, resident of Panadura, wishes my heart and
wrist more strength. She writes. Pen and paper ‘writes’, I must mention.
She gave me a twin moment. She is my twin of today. No one was
throwing stones and I am no Mansur, but this was a rose that came my
way. I feel blessed.
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