Monozygosity

An essay always under revision for me. I was reading too much Joan Didion at the time (first draft in 2012) and it certainly shows. My first draft contained an absurdly pretentious pose--I plopped in the entire Shakespeare sonnet without explication of any kind: figure it out! I must have thought. I hope this version is more humble. 

We were at one time a singular being. This is a curious feeling.

We were born on the same day in March of 1990. About nine months earlier, for a certain period of time, were were a single individual. Did we itch to be two? As monozygotic twins—identical twins—we come from one egg, one strand of DNA. What possible combination of cosmic motivations, global environmental factors, genetic susceptibilities, evolutionary hiccups, astrological alignments, and regional weather conditions could transform one person into two people? More simply put: what split the egg? To counter a common question put to me—usually unthinkingly—What is it like being a twin? I will often play the cynic: I don't know, what is it like not to be a twin? This is both coyly humorous and strategically avoidant. But after all, what a stupid question. Nevertheless, I will deign: What is it like to be a twin? In truth, it’s wonderful.

*

My sister and I are walking up the hill to campus for final exams. We are arguing about music, bickering and bantering in our own shorthand, and I wonder if I could ever do the same with a romantic partner. I have showered and been up since seven, I dress in an affected manner, deliberately (ashamedly) academic; she has rolled out of bed and thrown on a hooded sweater. I am headed to an English Lit. exam, she is headed to History of Rock and Roll. Our argument is preposterous: The Ramones vs. Glenn Gould. I am saying things like, “What did the Ramones do for music? They knew three guitar chords,” and she cannot believe we are related. Even I realize I am full of it, but I enjoy (as does she) the back and forth.

For as long as I can remember, my very identity has itself been a conversation piece, a nice icebreaker if you will. Hello have you met Laura? Did you know she’s a twin? Identical. They look exactly alike. A lazy but accurate skeleton of the conversation I will have with a previously unacquainted stranger for possibly at least the next ten minutes. Topics we are likely to cover:

-Do you fight a lot?

-Do you share boyfriends?

-What are the key differences in appearance as well as personality?

-Who is Baby A?

-What’s it like?

-Did you ever switch?

-Has your being defined as ‘one of two’ ever resulted in a sort of anxiety-ridden identity crisis?

I was only asked the latter once by a psychology major deeply interested in Jungian archetypes. I think I answered yes.

I remember being struck by the story of Castor and Pollux, the twin brothers of Helen of Troy (they are often conflated under one label, the Dioscuri, the sons of Zeus. One wonders whether they—if any Castor and Pollux ever existed—would have felt their individuality erased by such a label, or whether they would have cared at all. Or perhaps the common name would have been a comfort). Whether they were born out of one egg or two varies; regardless, the two are never depicted without the other. The two fought in battle together until Castor, fatally wounded, called out to his brother. All-powerful Zeus offered Pollux either a full ticket to Olympus, or merely half time, sharing his immortality with his brother. Pollux chose the latter; the brothers split their time between Hades and heaven. I do not imagine the choice was much of a choice at all for Pollux.

Imagine if you will having someone around, with whom you may always converse and bicker and banter and yet never tire. Imagine having the privilege of claiming: I am a solitary person, I require space and quiet and myself alone with my thoughts, and yet always knowing to the very pith of your being that you are not, and have never really ever been, alone in the world.

*

She is, once again, telling me about the greatness of The Beatles. The record player makes its revolutions in the background, the diamond needle moving against the miniscule ridges of a vinyl copy of Rubber Soul. We take turns flipping the finished record over, not bothering to put on something new. Her animated face will never grow old, not like this, not when expressing her admiration for Lennon-McCartney. Prosaic moments such as these are when the mind, relaxed and open, wanders down paths without particular intention or chosen destination. I feel the warmth of this moment, the darkness of the winter evening outside exaggerated by the bronzed light within the room. We will live like this forever.

We are permeable beings, porous, full of holes at the microscopic level. What is it, exactly, that separates one person from another? We have never been far apart, always like Castor and Pollux, in relation to the other. I am never really alone. This is a comfort. But while you are half of a whole, created and formed in the same moments, there is unfortunately no precise way to determine who will die first.

I think of a Shakespeare sonnet, number sixty-four. When I have seen by Time’s fell hand defaced / The rich proud cost of outworn buried age…loss, death is inevitable. I worry too often, the thought creeps up in the places I am most comfortable, unreasonable scenarios. I wonder who would cope better, which survivor? When I have seen such interchange of state, / Or state itself confounded to decay: the worst scenario. Norman Rush calls it the “hellmouth,” the “opening up of the mouth of hell right in from of you, without warning, through no fault of your own.” Ruin hath taught me thus to ruminate / That Time will come and take my love away. Living involves loss, but loss always shocks us. The injustice of it, the utterly unwelcome, yet wholly predictable facts of life seem still distant to me. I am young but already sense, abstract and foreboding, a shortness of time.

Who will die first?

Families, people in love have the same thought, but I cannot help but wonder whether the knowledge of a common origin, a onetime shared existence, might increase the loss; or am I exaggerating my own tragedy? Nevertheless, two possibilities: who will be left behind?

Since I first conceived of her mortality I have never not been afraid.