One of my fears concerning this story is that it might be prone to great criticism, due to the fact that I allot very few pages, narrating 15 whole years of my life. However, the initial idea was that this chapter would be the beginning of my story, but I ultimately decided to give a main context to the work and start from the beginning. Consequently, what I mean to say is that the facts concerning this story and of course the readers start to this point. This is where where music, Poetry and storytelling section begins.
So, I move forward narrating about the beginning of 2011 and then I was at the halfway of the Third Grade of Junior High School. During that time, in Kirkenes we were visited by my brother, Daniel, from Finland along with his friends, his wife, Savinna and their child. They were about to stay for almost three weeks. Even though he was working as a movie soundtrack composer, his hobby was to make objects of wood and he even used to sell handicraft objects that he himself was building in Finland. Almost every evening, thus, he was placing anything he had built on a workbench and he was selling them at the backyard of our own house. This was really beautiful for one to see, as we were there too barbecueing -- before I became a vegetarian. Because then I used to invite also my own friends at home, so they could see, and even maybe buy, some of Daniel's objects. You see my brother knew how he could make money even while abroad.
A month, after Daniel went back to Finland, my parents went off for a tour, because they were to stage a play. Monica and I were rather old --already 15-- to stay on our own for 9 months, however my mum would be rather content if someone would stay with us during the night. Thus, she asked Johanna to come back from Tromso and stay with us at home. And of course, that was a great pleasure for her. She brought along her best friend, who by the way was called Johanna too. Vivian used to call them "Johanna squared", because they are completely identical and secondly they are inseparable. Alright, that wasn't bad at all. Johanna is a perfect person and we used to have a good time together at all times. What is more, her best friend and I are friends too and we sometimes work together, as she is a musician as well. A bit after they came in Kirkenes, I sat for the exams for the last certificate in piano and Monica in violin and we didn't go to school for a whole week, as we were exhausted.
To that point, I would like to move on to this part, where I am going to talk about my twin sister, Monica. Monica had always been the most retired member of our family, concerning her relations with us. I don't mean that we are not in contact -alas, we phone each other every day or talk via Skype-, she just used to live with her husband in a village close to Oulu, in Finland. One could, then, find her in Oulun Leffanmusiikkiorkesteri (Oulu film music orchestra) and she was rather chubby with red hair. Since we were young, the way that Monica would be developed as a personality was something that was worrying me. And to this day I keep accusing myself, thinking that it was maybe my own fault and I never let her develop her own personality. I will explain the reason.
To start with, Monica and I were literally speaking developed together. We used to do everything together, we were eating together and our own beds were even attached. And of course she used to tell me anything she was concerned about (even though I was extremely secretive and I would never tell anyone what I was feeling or thinking). Thus, as we were growing older, I had started to realise that two things were happening with Monica. The first was that her own personality was being developed out of people's personality, who she was growing up with. I mean that it seemed like she didn't have her own personality or her own preferences. The most obvious example is that since she was 16 she had red hair, because during that time I decided to dye my own hair red, thus she did the same. Later on, her husband told her she looks beautiful in that colour, so she would never change it. Just think that a few years ago Vivian asked Monica and me what our favourite film soundtracks were (as Monica was a violinist in an orchestra, in which they were covering film soundtracks). I instantly replied: "The Hours by Philip Glass as well as Jurassic Park". Then, Monica replied: "Yeah, yeah, these are my own favourites too". And indeed I was taken aback and told her Really??? I didn't know!!!, because it was impossible that there weren't any personal favourite songs to her, different than those that I liked. Probably Vivian thought about the same think, who told her: "Oh, this is impossible. You have to say something else". And then Monica added Lady in the Water, which....was a soundtrack, I myself used to play all day long on the piano!!! That means it was something she had heard by me as well. The second thing was that, for my own part, I used to believe that Monica was extremely innocent --much more innocent than me-- and had always this childish character and pitch in her voice, that's why I was obliged to protect her from the misery and cruelty of the world. I was afraid that because of her own innocence and goodness, she would be mislead, being taken into advantage and be badly hurt. I wasn't at all strict, nor overprotective, however I never let her develop her own character. I was always next to her, at all times, at least until that age when we both started to have relationships. Thus, she had become anything I was and anything her husband was. At least, when she left Kirkenes, I was happy, because I believed that she didn't get involved with some man who would mistreat her and do anything he wanted along with her, but instead that her husband was a good man and he would take good care of her. However, looking back in the past, I always felt sorry that I destroyed Monica's self like this.
This was a not so short parenthesis for my twin sister. During the week that we didn't go to school, Monica, the two Johannas and I were doing nice and interesting things. Along with the girls, we would go walking in the forest or just to pick up mushrooms, as Scandinavia is full of mushrooms. I even taught them two of my favourite Celtic songs. The first was Gathering Mushrooms, by Clannad, in which backing vocals were sung by their young sister, the then-unknown Enya, whom Johanna and Johanna were a huge fan of, as well as Monica and me were. The second song was Lish Young Buy-a-Broom, also by Clannad, and was a song I got the girls hooked on, because one morning the girls were going all the way down from home to the woods. And then Monica and I appeared before them, dancing around and having two long braids and our then natural blonde hair, singing that song in an extremely strong Irish accent. The girls started to giggle and during the following days the four of us would go down the street in our braids, dancing around and singing Lish Young Buy-a-Broom. Well, I have to remind you, that we might have been 15 year-old small girls, but the other two girls were 24 year-old jennies!
However, you can't say that they didn't have a child's heart. After a week, we went back to school, so my sister wanted to seem stricter. We had to be in bed, at least in 12 o'clock, because we had school in the morning. But, I don't think that this was her own concern about us, I mean wake up early for school. Obviously, when we were falling asleep, she would get the chance to play video games with Johanna. And I know this well, because sometimes I was unable to sleep and I was reading books in bed, even though Monica was able to sleep with the reading lamp on. Thus, very soon I could listen to video games music from the Playstation and the girls talking about that they had to be careful where they step onto, because they might lose. I know that they were usually playing Skyrim, Final Fantasy and World of Warcraft and sometimes The Witcher. Both of them were really hooked on RPG stuff. That why I used to call them a striking pair and whenever the four of us got together, we would call each other striking quartet. But most of all, I preferred Vivian's Johanna squared. Although I am really fond of reading books and watching movies, video games are one of my three major passions (the other two are synthesizers and tablets). Only to think this freaking strain on my left wrist was caused because of Playstation and because I was constantly playing Tarkus on the Hammond Organ. Thus, I was rising from bed and I was going close to them, watching them play video games. Then, Johanna was turning into a serious older sister and was strictly saying:
"Ingrid, it's 2 o'clock in the morning. Why aren't you sleeping? You have school tomorrow!"
"How do you expect me to sleep, when you are that loud?", I would answer.
In the morning, Johanna would usually take us to school and sometimes she would even pick us up. Funnily enough, she was staying up late with her friend and then she was the one who couldn't wake up in the morning. I would even shake her, turn her around, you name it, but she was sleeping like a log. Thus, I would go fairly early in the morning on the piano and play Pink Floyd or Celtic music and sing very loud. Then Johanna would wake up with her hair in a mess (just like the other Johanna) and she was like: "Alright, alright! I woke up!"
In the car, until we'd reach (school was about half an hour away), we were having a huge lark. The four of us were singing in Irish, but I was the only one who actually knew the lyrics. The rest of the girls were singing gibberish, because they couldn't make any sense of the actual lyrics. I believe that during this time, I was as happy as I couldn't ever be, because there were people in my family, that I loved and they truly loved me too. Johanna was the first person who encouraged me to stand in my own feet and protect myself, just on my own, even though I have never been able to achieve that, at least perfectly. As far as affection is concerned, the other Johanna was my sister's best friend, however my sister's friends are my own friends as well. Every day I would go to school with a wide smile on my face and I was full of joy, so that my friends thought I had found some nice boyfriend. However, referring to that I would answer that I was married to music.
The fact that now Johanna was staying in Kirkenes had a major drawback, at least for me, because I am a woman who needs her own solitude and not being bothered by anyone. As you all know, Johanna has been a singer in a band, since she was 16 years old. In 2011 her band was quite successful and had a lot of punch to the teens. When I was going to school, children knew that a) Johanna and I share the same surname, b)Johanna was from Kirkenes and now they'd seen that she was living there, c) it is no secret that we looked like each other, and indeed Johanna and I look like each other much more than Monica and I resemble each other, even though we are twins and d) the best was that a classmate of mine encountered us once together in a supermarket.
Thus, many rumours had started to spread all around the school of the type Do you know who the eldest sister of Ingrid and Monica is? or even Two classmates of ours are sisters to a famous singer. Monica and I pretended, at first, that we didn't care about that at all and we thought that everything will be blown over soon. Afterwards, though, many children would go on asking whether we were somehow related with Johanna Sorensen. I was laughing and, because my blood was full of madness, I would say "Haven't you noticed? She's my wife!" However, soon they started to bombard with questions, not only me, but Monica as well, who due to her weak character, she -poor her- didn't know what to answer and she was walking away. In the end, though, I was fed up with all these questions about Johanna, went home pissed off and told her: " I don't know what to do anymore!"
For her part, she cracked up and told me: "You fool, you shouldn't conceal that we are siblings. You don't need to. We'll make them freak out in such a way, that they will never forget".
"What do you mean?", I asked.
"To start with, every day I will be taking and picking up Monica and you to and from school".
So, that's what happened. In the afternoon, when school was over, we were listening a honk outside the door. Some noon that she honked, I turned my head, only to see Johanna have turned half of her hair sideways, wear dark sunglasses and bold red lipstick, looking towards mine and my friend's side in puckering lips. My classmates, as teenagers full of hormones, were like: "Oh, look at that chick! I have been at her shows!" I was pretending to be angry and answered: "Well I don't think that you and my sister would be a good match. She's at least 10 years older than you!" The boys had freaked out, showing Johanna and they said: "She...is...your own sister?" I didn't seem to pay attention to them really, as I was saying: "Bye, bye. See you tomorrow". We were getting in the car and I would blow Johanna a kiss and on a great laughter, I was saying: "You always provoke others to pay attention to you". She was laughing and was replying to me: "That's what you always do, once you are an artist. Isn't it awesome?"
"Well, I suppose...."
In the afternoons, we were coming home peacefully, where I would play music or write stories and later we would play video games or watch movies.
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