I wish I had been a twin. I wish my twin had been a girl named Sophie. She would be pretty in an understated way and she would be funny. Clever funny. She’d love to write and we’d share our passion for words. She’d call me by some peculiarly obscure adolescent nickname like “Sliver”, and I’d call her “Soap” because I’d never been able to say “Sophie” when I was a tyke. Yes, tyke. We’d call and chat once a week at least. We’d finish each other’s sentences and laugh when we told stories about our parents. She’d always have my back.
2 Responses to 300 words on being an only child
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Hi James,If you’re in London atymine soon you might want to check out the Treasures of Heaven exhibition currently on at the British Museum. I went the other day and remembered this article. Religious reliquaries seem designed to be imbued with the “spirit” of a saint while containing parts of their corpse or vials of blood.People seem to assume that such things are inbued with a certain character and essence of that saint. I guess it’s the same thing for places of pilgrimage or homage, from Abbey Road Studio to the Wailing Wall. I feel like it’s the same thing with historical books. They appeal to our essentialist side.Is this hard-wired into us, something to do with our ability to work with abstractions, signs and symbols? I wonder if something like this could have originated with the human habit of ceremonial – essentially essentialist – treatment of their dead?It certainly gets you thinking!Ben (unformation.net)