Twins

by Madeleine Kando

My twin sister lives on the Costa del Sol. She lives in a house the size of the tool shed in my backyard. When I skype with her I can see how beautiful her shed is. All wood, beautifully furnished, immaculately clean. She is a proponent of a minimalist life style and is suspicious of anything extravagant.

My twin sister complements me in every way. She is what I am not. She trusts her instincts, she stays up late when she feels like it, she stays in bed when she wants to and she follows her desires. Because that’s what you are supposed to do with desires. You are supposed to fulfill them. Unless you are a neurotic, masochistic, insecure doubting Thomas like me.

We have been twins for a long time now, my twin sister and I. When I see her on my little skype screen, I realize that, aside from her long braided greying hair, she is still the young, indestructible, adventurous, ambiguous, irrational, tempestuous young woman that she was decades ago.

She has chosen a life for herself that is compatible with her temperament. She is single again after a marriage gone sour. I envy her ability to cut through the bull of human relationships. I like how she simplifies the concept of ‘me’ versus ‘them’. In her eyes, if what she does is good for her, it must also be good for the people she cares for. No questions asked. No regrets if her strong opinions causes havoc around her.

I so wish that I could be like that. Be able to wear colored glasses to see the world the color I like best. My curse is that I am still, and always have been, tempted to be neutral when it comes to reality. It’s not that I don’t have convictions. In fact, my children get very irritated with me because I always see things in black and white. They have dubbed me a ‘drama queen’. The things is, I am just a sucker for ‘the truth’. That’s why I will never be a leader. I just don’t have the heart to voluntarily put blinders on. You know, when you see a horse lead his herd, the lead horse just GOES. He doesn’t analyze things. You don’t see him stop, put his hoof against his temple and mutter under his breath: ‘mm, I wonder if I should turn right at this river crossing or left?’. He just goes and the herd follows.

My sister is like that. She just goes through life like a race horse, not worrying too much about the consequences. I happen to be more like a particle that is potentially everywhere and is soooo afraid of collapsing into a certain state. I am a particle that will always regret all the other options that I could have taken, before I collapsed into being me.

But I like being my sister’s twin. She reminds me of who I COULD be, if I wanted to. And I probably remind her of what SHE could be. There is that, you know: entanglement. It is never simple to be a twin. We have had moments of extreme entanglement. Moments where we really wanted to be one. Which turned into a fantastic fiasco, because we couldn’t handle each other’s heat.

It has also branded me for life in how I relate to other women. This mix of rivalry and a longing for what I would almost call religious ‘communion’. Some of my friends feel smothered by something that I consider a natural show of affection. An attempt to make communion. Maybe I should only be friends with other twins. They are the ones who could meet me on a level playing field.

The bottom line is, no matter how much time and distance there is between us, me and my twin sister, we will always, always be that: each other’s twin. When one of us dies, the other one will still be here to represent us. And when we both die.. well, then we’ll be one. With all the other dead twins. A universe full of reunited twins!!! leave comment here