The childhood shows the man As morning shows the day.~John Milton, Paradise Regained
Genetics is a funny thing. I think genetics & I know red is a recessive gene so Ditz & Joss got 2 recessives to produce the red tinge they both have in their hair. I know the twins are identical because of their eyes. Brown dominates over blue. I have 3 children with brownish eyes but the twins are both blue~eyed. Long dominates over short so Joss is 6'6'' but the twins are 5'6'' ~ so not fair!
The pic is my brother & I but it could easily be Ditz & Dino. Same faces, same eyes, same smiles. I understand in my own illiterate scientific way the way hereditary works. What I do not get are the intangables. Ditz doing her Ditzy thing & wham! It's like seeing & hearing 'Ri back in the days. I mean, how does Ditz know to do that wry thing with her mouth, the hands to the cheeks or the dramatic cooling of an overheated face. No~one else in the house performs these stunts but Ditz has them down pat from someone she's seen about twice in her life. It is seriously weird. Or she'll be in another room & her voice gets a certain pitch, the stresses fall a certain way & I'd swear on my grandmother's grave I was listening to 'Ri.
And Liddy is seriously spooky. Upset her & she instinctively looks & sounds uncannily like my mother.
I saw once this amazing doco about our reproductive systems. Sorry people, I'm a poet not a scientist, & what struck me forcibly was how intricate everything became the smaller it got; the delicate, billowing garden within us. I can still visualise it years after I've forgotten the science.
As I get older I find myself clamping my jaw the way my mother always has. I never used to do that. I make a conscious effort not to but my DNA is hardwired a certain way. We are indeed fearfully & wonderfully wrought & in thinking these things I am reminded of a certain microbiologists whose name escapes me but who set the DNA of peat bog & mice to music & found he had something that played uncannily like Bach or Chopin. I thought then, & think now, how amazing that even our DNA is programmed in such a way that it glorifies the Lord God ~ because seriously, who else would take so much trouble with something unlikely to ever be heard outside a peculiar few?
Yeah, definitely one of those days when the old mind goes rambling down some strange paths but at least you can't say the journey was dull.
8 comments:
Don't you know you evolved from one-celled creatures and all that stuff is chance?
:]
God bless you. I like the pic of you and your brother... so cute.
I looked just like my father and then, all of a sudden, my mother's face started creeping into mine. Interesting how that works. I am eagerly waiting for my mother's more-placid temperment to replace some of the stubborn traits I trace to my father's side.
Love the pic!
you know, i have always looked so much like my mother... (at least facial features wise, sadly i didn't inherit her extremely petite, delicate build.) anyway, as i age i am noticing my father in my face. i was startled one day to look in the mirror and see my father's eyes. i have the same folds of skin around them as he does, and my brow is setting in exactly the same way. it is freaky.
I empathise with the twins: my brother is 6'6"; I am 5'2". He stole my height!
Siano
One of the books I keep forgetting to bring with me on my visits is Tears of the Cheetah: a book on molecular genetics written in nice, clear, accessible English. One of the stories in it that blew my mind tells us that _all_ the cheetah in Africa are derived from an incredibly small gene pool: the result of one (possibly; I don't have the book with me to check facts at the moment) breeding female who survived near-extinction of the breed millenia ago. Fascinating but scary: fascinating to compare with the theory that the entire human race is descended from 7 women; scary when you consider how fragile that renders the cheetah gene pool - a single virulent infection could decimate the entire species before genetic adaption could occur...
Siano
Siano
I loved the picture of your brother and you - so cute!
LOL, what a trip.
My family is just a little off - my dad has blue eyes; my mom has brown. All 3 of my siblings got blue eyes, and I'm the only one with brown.
My kids look like MY dad when he was young, and my whole family is tall.
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