Twins

I took horseback riding lessons when I was four. It was taught by a woman on her farm outside of Ontario (Oregon, not Canada, where I grew up). She had identical twin daughters around my age, a little older perhaps. They were fully capable on horses, even at that age. They looked totally natural riding around, while I gripped the reigns and squeezed my legs as tightly as possible when I rode, though I was always being towed by an adult as well. One of these girls was kicked in the head by a horse around that time and somehow was ok. I never knew her later in life, so who knows how ok she actually was/is.
These girls were the first identical twins I knew. Later, I became close friends with sisters who were fraternal twins. They were totally different from each other in every way and were simply sisters who had been born on the same day. It wasn’t until I was in college that I became friends with identical twins and again, they were totally different from each other, but they looked exactly the same. All of this is to say, I’ve had experience with twins, but never had any kind of real fascination with them. Sure, I’m curious about what it must be like, and as a child imagined having a twin myself. And I’m always intrigued when I hear stories of twins with singular languages only they can understand. Beyond that though, I don’t see twins as any kind of phenomenon.
I wasn’t prepared then, when I became the father of twins for the amount of interest and ignorance the general public has surrounding twins. My sons are fraternal–and I swear to god they are, though they look alike*; I have to convince people enough it drives me fucking insane–and have names that do not rhyme or alliterate. We do not dress them alike, though they have naturally over time adopted their own color schemes: Amedeo, red; Eban, blue.
People constantly ask if they have different personalities. And this question is asked by a wide, wide swath of people, from friends and family to strangers and aquantences. From the highly educated to the non-educated, it does not matter, the question gets asked. What always strikes me though, is this idea of how sad it would be to have these two kids who are exactly alike. Two beings who share not only their looks, their clothes, and every goddamn second of every goddamn day, but on top of that, their very personalities? Are you just keeping one around for emergencies then? Just in case something happens, it’s important to have a backup. My sons are very, very different from each other in ways that are sometimes easy to identify, but mostly not. They both can be assholes, they both can be sweet, they’re both very funny, they’re both good at sports, though different ones.
The fact that so many people view twins as being identical in every way–including personality–intrigues me more and more as I realize how widespread it is. I don’t understand it really, but obviously it’s there. Maybe someday I’ll go back to school and write a doctoral thesis on the public perception of the personality of twins.
*Those are my sons on the Doc Watson album cover, but I should say the picture is several years old. It was taken by their mother, Lisa Bogan, an amazing photographer. They look more alike in that picture than they do now. Really. I swear. I’m not the liar here. You’re the liar!