Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about twins.
Two of my favorite friends from high school are twins. And, of course, there’s those creepy girls from The Shining, but I’m not thinking strictly about actual twins. I mean twins as a metaphor. As archetype. As pattern.
Have you seen Sinners yet. It’s a remarkable film. Best if you know as little as possible before you see it, but it won’t spoil anything to let you know that that Michael B. Jordan plays a pair of twins. The kind who are the same but not. Mirror images that distort more than they reflect. Brothers bound together by blood and history and hope, still trying to figure out how to share space without collapsing.
Maybe it’s the movie…but at the moment, I’m seeing twins everywhere. Mythic twins. Comic book twins. Emotional twins hiding inside my own head.
There’s something about this time of year. Maybe it’s a Gemini thing. (I think I’ll publish this in time to honor my own star-sign twins, Castor and Pollux.) I turned 52 last week, and I can feel at least two versions of myself jostling for airtime. I’m just not sure yet if they’re competing or collaborating.
Maybe that’s why I keep thinking about the Wonder Twins.
Remember them? Zan and Jayna. Cartoon siblings from Saturday mornings. He could transform into any form of water. She could become any animal. Separately, kind of useless. Together, unstoppable.
“Wonder Twin powers: activate!”
It’s all so campy and dated and completely brilliant. They couldn’t even access their powers unless they touched hands. That was the rule. No contact, no transformation.
And here’s the thing: they weren’t the same. Not even close. One became a dolphin, the other a puddle. But it worked. They worked. Their power was in their connection, not their sameness.
Which brings me back to Castor and Pollux.
The original twins, if you believe the Greeks. Sons of Zeus (maybe) and Spartan royalty (definitely). One mortal, one divine. They fought together, sailed with Jason and the Argonauts, and when Castor was killed, Pollux begged the gods to let him share his immortality. They were eventually placed in the stars as Gemini—the constellation of twins. Light and dark. Earth and sky. A reminder that some bonds outlast even death.
That’s the kind of twinship I’m curious about lately—not just the literal or familial, but the parts of ourselves that seem at odds, yet somehow belong together. The sacred and the stubborn. The wounded and the wise. The version of me that wants to read books made of paper and the version of me that plays Block Blast instead. The part that’s still healing and the part that helps others heal.
There’s a book beside my bed called Courting the Wild Twin by Martin Shaw. I haven’t read it yet, which feels on-brand. But the title alone sticks with me. The wild twin. The one you don’t always acknowledge. The one who lives just outside the gate, who keeps showing up in dreams and decisions. The one who might ruin everything—or set you free.
I don’t know exactly what I’m saying, except that maybe this is the season to notice who you’re walking alongside. Maybe there’s a twin you’ve been ignoring. Maybe your power comes not from being one thing, but from learning how to let your different selves shake hands. Maybe there’s a puddle and a panther in all of us, waiting for the right moment to team up.
I’m not sure. I’m just thinking about twins.
kZB