Bonded Pairs
It is a truth universally acknowledged, that a lonely girl in possession of a library card must be in want of a twin. The child who spends a lot of time in books also spends a lot of time thinking about the lost or secret twin she must have – “must have” meaning surely has, but “must have” in the sense of “needs,” also – that mirror child who loves her, IS her, holds her hand always.
Every story is trying to do one of two things: reflect the world; or perfect the world. Sometimes it’s trying to do both; either way it’s trying to impose order on a chaotic and isolating world, like we learned in freshman English. The Sweet Valley High Wakefields, the Parent Trap kids, Luke and Leia, even generations of Doublemint twins used literal reflections, mirror images, in the service of their perfections. The twins of these tales complete patterns, explain evil, right wrongs, give permission to fight and scheme and paint your room brown.
All pairs do this to a degree: tell us where to look, create frameworks. Sun and moon, salt and pepper, before and after, thunder and lightning, Juniors and Seniors…Mantle and Maris. Say the word “Mantle” and it suggests half a dozen things, the name “Maris” a smaller group, but the two of them together is only one thing, in one time, known and precise. Pairs organize the memory, so that even when one half is gone, the remaining half suggests its mate, locates you in time.
There is a pair of cardinals living in an old-growth tree near my house, named by me for St. Louis Cardinals as I’ve done for years, and to hear Mrs. Dean’s song is to know Dizzy will appear on our feeder seconds later. The world is so often not that way; we don’t know what’s coming or if it’s going to make any sense. Sometimes the other half is foreboding, the other shoe dropping, another think coming. Mostly it’s just stuff breaking or getting lost. Mostly we live with mismatched sets, boot heels glued back on off-plumb, the serving spoon that got et by the disposal and won’t play nice in the drawer anymore, and we just make do, until “the new one” or “the crooked one” is just “the other one.” Until it belongs.
Until we figure out how to insure the heart, this is what we do. We will never figure that out, it can’t be done, but believing in secret twins, or that what might make us whole is waiting on the road ahead, makes it seem possible – that a hand waits to hold ours. And sometimes we’re left, but sometimes we’re right, walking through a crime scene with a new friend on his birthday.
Happy birthday, Don.
Tags: September 11th
Happy Birthday, Don. Thanks for acknowledging another year, Sars. It helps bring me peace in chaotic times.
Back again to visit and remember, and suddenly realize it’s been a generation that we’ve been doing this.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Happy birthday Don
Good morning old friends. It is sunny and bright here in Ottawa with that crisp edge of fall in the air, and it is my perfect weather. I hope it’s beautiful where you are and that you’re able to take a moment to look at the sky and be at peace.
Sars, thank you for keeping this place as a point of remembrance and of friendship.
Don, happiest of birthdays to you. I hope you are told each day how important you are.
Happy birthday, Don.
And thank you, Sars, for keeping the candle burning.
Thanks for this wonderful reflection, Sars.
Happy Birthday, Don.
Happy Birthday, Don.
The first and only stop online today.
My children are singing over their homeschool work. We have to finish early, before Mass. I will get my hands into bread dough soon, and I will try to forget – because on this day, if I close my eyes for too long, I remember the streets of New York City under my feet, and how we all ran.
Eternal rest grant unto them O Lord, and may perpetual light shine upon them.
God bless you, Sars. Your writing has been a gift to us for so many years.
Happy birthday, Don.
Another year of waking up and wishing Don a happy birthday, a BETTER birthday than the one we shared with him through you, Sars.
Thank you for still being here to give us a place to gather and remember and hope. Best to you and yours.
Happy birthday, Don, and thank you, Sarah.
I also thought of you and Don, and came to check. Thanks for the lovely essay.
Once more I return, as many do.
Once again I feel immense gratitude for your gift, good soul Sars. your ability to capture all of it and make the words make sense – so so so grateful.
I smiled on this theme, as my twin sis Blood surely makes my world a much more solid place. It’s a thing that I don’t ponder at all – but here you have me making more, better sense of my life – again, much thanks.
Today for the first time I noticed the solemnity didn’t hit until after I dropped the kiddo off at school; a sunny, lovely fall-ish school run, with light, goofy chatting.
Perfect, in fact.
Happy birthday Don.
:scott/nc:
Happy birthday, Don. Thank you, Sarah.
Nice to see you all again. [twirls the cake stand]
Happy birthday, Don. Thanks, Sars, for giving us the gift of space reflection and reunion every year.
Thank you, Sarah, for this beautiful reflection about being right sometimes, and being left. Thank for this gathering, still. Hello again, old friends I have yet to meet. How is everyone?
Happy birthday, Don. Thank you for holding her hand.
Thank you, Sarah, TN family and friends for this reunion. It reminds me how blessed we are to be here to do so, and to take the time to spend with those we care about–there may never be enough time, but even the smallest amount of time has meaning and is worth it, so much more than none at all.
I am afraid for our future and pray that this generation here will never have to experience any similar or further trauma and that the horrors being experienced by this generation elsewhere will come to a swift and healable end. I hope we all can contribute to the healing, even as this little internet spot contributes to my own healing.
Happy birthday, Don! I hope the love here radiates out to you and enriches your life in its ripples.
May the love also ripple out to you, Sars and yours, and to all the friends here.
Hi everyone.
Thank you, Sarah.
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don.
Every year on this date, I wake up unsettled, and every year, your words bring me comfort and peace. Thank you, Sars, for being the memory-keeper.
Thank you, Sars. And happy birthday, Don, wherever you are.
Raining here in the Pacific northwest, a welcome thing during fire season. We’re making end-of-life decisions about our 16-year-old cat. I figured Sars’ post would go up later in the day, but why not check early, just in case? So lovely to be wrong.
I’m here again as every year. And every year when I return I’m glad to see everyone again. I believe this is now one of the longest traditions I’ve held – returning to this space. Thank you for giving us this space to gather, Sars.
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday, Don.
Thanks for coming back every year and ruminating over this. This is the very first year I forgot to check in first thing to see what you wrote. But I made it here eventually this morning. Thank you Sarah. Happy birthday, Don.
I think every brilliantly sunny, perfectly clear September day will always make me think of Sept 11th, at least for a moment. And every Sept 11th will make me think of you, and Don. Thank you. Happy birthday, Don.
Hello again everyone – tough to believe it’s been 23 years already.
Happy birthday, Don!
This has become the one place I go to commemorate and remember that day, to hold a space for who and what we lost, and I’m grateful for all of you who come here with me and for Sars, who never forgets.
Happy birthday, Don. I hope the past 23 years have been kind to you.
Love to Sars, and all the Tomatos. Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars, our memory keeper.
It’s good to see you, everybody.
Happy birthday, Don.
I took the dog out for a walk after work yesterday, and thought “the weather is perfect”, and then remembered it was September 10. The weather is always perfect on September 10.
Thanks, again, Sarah. And Happy Birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sars for still being here to remember this day and this place.
I’m 1000 miles away and in a life I never expected to have. It is with bittersweet fondness that I come back here to check in with all of you.
Happy birthday, Don!
I appreciate this yearly ritual, and you making it happen, so so much.
Thank you. Happy Birthday, Don.
It has been a generation – my son born after learned in elementary school, before that from us. We’re on the West Coast, but in the Bay Area, where people were also lost that day, as well as our feeling of security.
It is a gloriously foggy day to tamp down wildfire potential.
Thank you Sarah and all for continuing this.
Happy birthday Don.
As I’ve said every year for what feels like an absolute eternity – thank you, Sarah. And happy birthday, Don.
Twenty three years? How can this be?
We know time keeps on, no matter what, that the worst day recedes even when it seems like the height of betrayal to the world and our lives. On and on it goes. Over a year since the Lahaina fire. Nine years since 2016. Twenty three years since that day.
There are tiny spaces, little circles, twins waiting for us, though. Where the fact that twenty three years have passed isn’t what’s important. It’s the tiny space, the little circle, the twin’s hand, where we can remember.
Happy Birthday, Don.
So glad to be able to stop in here today and see your familiar names. Thank you for the many years of companionship, Sarah.
Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you, Sarah, for the community you’ve created and continue to maintain here. Echoing everyone’s gratitude to you for your poignant, beautifully written words this and every year. I hope you and everyone else who comes here to remember are all safe and well. Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you Sarah for always having a place for us to come together today of all days. It has been a very hard yard and a particulary hard week (we lost our dog on Monday after a brief but aggressive illness that we really thought he could recover from) and the comfort of this page and all of TN means a lot today.
Clover, I’m so very sorry for the difficult decision you are facing. Sending you and your family comforting thoughts.
Happy Birthday Don.
PS: I always hope that Don feels an unknown but positive vibe today from all of our well-wishes :)
Hello to all my old friends and many thanks to Sarah for providing us with this space to reconnect and remember every year. Xx
Happy Birthday, Don.
happy birthday, Don, and thank you Sarah for another year of reflection and quiet contemplation on this heavy day. thinking of you both, and so many countless others.
Happy birthday, Don.
Happy birthday Don.
Happy birthday, Don.
Coming back to this site like a pilgrimage. Greetings to fellow travellers. Thank you to Sars for hosting and writing and being. It’s been this many years but someone on reddit posted footage of that day and I could not watch. Did not need to since it’s embedded in my brain.
Weather in Boston is a nice fall day, sunny and a touch of crispness that says “bring a sweater”.
Most of all, Happy Birthday Don.
I’m here too, every year. Thanks Sars for this place to come and reflect. And for the gift of your writing.
Every year.
Happy birthday, Don.
Thank you for this space, where I come every year.
Coming here, seeing the familiar names of my unmet, invisible friends, has become my purest observation of this day. I’m grateful for all of you, and especially Sarah, for continuing to share her words with us and hold this space for us to remember. Happy birthday, Don–I wish you, and everyone here, every blessing, and the balm of time, time, endless relentless beautiful time.
I come here every year and never thought to thank you before. Thank you for doing this every year and Happy Birthday, Don.
My lunchtime reading on this day, nearly every year. In a world where traditions are less and less appreciated, thank you, Sars, for continuing this one.
Happy Birthday Don.
Coming here is like church, just slipping into the back pew for a few minutes to be still. Twenty-three years. The me of then could not imagine the me of now. So many pairs gone, so many mismatched halves all around in the closets and drawers. The me then, a newly fledged “adult,” wanted everything matching because that meant everything was new and shiny, but the me now sees so much more in the familiar halves that hang around. I’m so glad you’re out there, hanging around. I hope Don is too, and that his birthday is the best one yet.