Living over 200 miles from my twin whilst at university established for the first time in my life a meaningful separation. We had our own courses, homes, friends, and cities. I discovered hidden inadequacies in my social skills that had been masked by my twins outgoing gregarious nature. She struggled to wrestle with the admin of life that had been delegated to me for so long.

As children we had declared ‘we love we’ as adolescents we no longer identified as ‘we’ but found that our individuality was unwanted in society. Friends envied our twindom not wanting to look beyond the idealised fantasy. In reality our attempts at establishing our individuality played out as all-out war in private or embarrassing bust ups in public. Identity seemed to be relational; I am what she is not. Geographical separation revealed surprising truths. Our identities became more nuanced not relational to each other but to our core selves; what we desired, who we were.

Lockdown threw us into what felt like a second infancy, no purpose, no friends, no contact, just an endless tumbling through time together as part of a globally sanctioned temporary regression. I found that Antonio Vivaldi’s Winter (From The Four Seasons) has a level of sublime harmony interspersed with pheromonal moments of tension that reflects my experience with my twin, with unpredictable moments of bliss, frustration and peace.