Likenesses

[gothwalk]

Many years ago, I gave up asking my father "Where did you get this?". I used to ask it a lot, and he could rarely remember where any given object came from. "It was your mother's" was a frequent enough answer, and once or twice I got "Scotland", or "We were given it by someone." Mostly, though, he didn't know, and that used to annoy me. I could remember where every single thing I owned came from, where I'd got it, and even how much I'd paid for it in many cases.

A few minutes ago, I was straightening a rug on the couch downstairs, and I looked at it and wondered; where did we get this? when? And I have no idea, just as I've no idea where and when a good half dozen other objects in the sittingroom came from, or when.

I heard my father's voice on the answering machine today, and genuinely thought for a second I'd accidentally called my own mobile. I sit in exactly the same posture as he does, and I can pick my brother out of a crowd at two blocks from the way he walks - just like my father. I can't always distinguish between my middle brother or my father on the phone.

I wonder how much of it is in the blood, and how much is learned.

Comments

[silme.livejournal.com]

I don't know. I just remember thinking how everyone was crazy saying I looked like my father, that I had his face, etc. My father was in his forties when I was born, so I'd never known him as a young man. Then I found a picture of him in his World War II uniform.

I do look just like him. Scary.

And when I visit my sister and answer the phone there, her friends think I'm her. Weird, eh?

[malinaldarose.livejournal.com]

I am occasionally shocked to hear my mother's voice coming out of my mouth -- generally when I'm yelling at the dogs, using some of the same phrases she used to yell at me and my siblings when we were children.

[bastun-ie.livejournal.com]

I wonder how much of it is in the blood, and how much is learned.

The more adoption reunions I'm involved in, the more I think it's in the blood - certainly if anecdotal evidence can be relied upon. The number of times I've heard people say 'None of it was really sinking in, that I'd met him/her... and then I noticed the way s/he was sitting/the way s/he held her drink' or whatever. Bloody uncanny. It goes beyond voice and mannerisms, too - in my own case, I've a half-brother who's a former gamer and is currently a martial arts intructor.

[cissa.livejournal.com]

I've found that as I've gotten older, my ability to retain minor pieces of info has dropped. This is forcing me to attempt organization. :(

[grutok.livejournal.com]

Don't know about the voice thing, but I regularly get peoples names mixed up -not relative strangers but people that I know really well (calling debbie by the other sister's name for example)- something that my father has done for years (I regularly get called Aiden - his little bro!)

[sachertorte.livejournal.com]

Awhile ago I was trying to buy myself some sturdy shoes. Couldn't find ones I liked in the ladies dept., so I hopped over to gents and picked out a pair. The next time I visited my family, I saw the same exact shoes on my father's feet.