double lives

They say we all have a doppelganger, an identical copy of ourselves, somewhere in the world.

Since moving to Melbourne a couple of years ago, I have often been told how much like Princess Mary I look…the Tasmanian ‘commoner’ who met the Prince of Denmark in a bar in Sydney in 2000 and in truly Cinderella fashion, stole his heart. To resemble Princess Mary is very flattering. She is beautiful. I am not really sure of the accuracy of the comparison, maybe it’s something to do with the hair or the eyes or a similarity in the way we carry ourselves.

It’s pretty good to have a celebrity doppelganger. I was at a wedding last week and met a couple who both have celebrity doppelgangers.  I saw the woman first and was struck by how much she looked like Thandie Newton. She said that she gets that all the time, but wait until I met her boyfriend who looks just like a grown-up Billy Elliott, or at least, the actor who plays the part of the boy from the north-east of England who falls in love with dancing. Spitting image.

What do we do with the knowledge that we have a twin? Fiction and folklore have long suggested that running into your double was an omen of bad fortune. In German, doppelganger literally means double walker. The idea was that you had a ghostly other who would confront his or her fleshy counterpart at a time when something bad was about to happen. I’m not so sure about that.

I am sure that we could work with our twins for good and not evil. We could be stunt doubles in each others’ lives, taking turns to step in when required. I’m sure Mary sometimes wants a break from all the functions. I’d be happy to get dressed up in the fancy clothes now and then…although perhaps not the white trouser suit. I really don’t think I could pull that one off.

And it’s interesting. If I had been in that bar in Sydney and met Prince Frederik, would I now be buttering my toast with unsalted Danish butter and wearing white trouser suits?

And would Thandie Newton and Jamie Bell ever get together?

Maybe they did. They starred in a film together in 2011, Retreat. Life imitating art, or…

Regardless, I had a great remedial massage from Billy Elliott and might be teaching French to  Thandie Newton’s sister.

I don’t think doppelgangers are bad omens. I think they allow possibility.