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.
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. 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.
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 old, 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.
Malinda Seneviratne is the Editor-in-Chief of 'The Nation and can be reached at msenevira@gmail.com
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