The Hewitt Times

Anyone who knows me even the tiniest bit is aware that my mother gave birth to two sets of twins. I have a twin brother, Scott, and a little brother and sister, Mark and Caitlyn, who just turned nine. You may also recognize this picture, as it has been my profile picture on Facebook for seven months now (and I have no intention of changing it anytime soon). Come on, tell me we aren’t adorable, especially because we were basically identical. (Scott and I, I mean. The second set was more aesthetically-fraternal.)

Before you ask – no, my family’s twin fiesta was not planned in any way. (Scientists haven’t quite figured out how to make designer babies…yet.) The other question that I get is if we all have a twin-unique telekinetic connection. The truth is, as you’ve probably garnered from the title of this article, that no, we do not.

Don’t stop reading just yet, though! Even though the four of us don’t have any clairvoyant tendencies towards either our twin or each other, we are connected by something deeper and more universal. And what is this “something”? (Drumroll, please.) It’s music.

At any given moment in my house, there is music wafting through the air, whether it’s coming from Scott and I harmonizing vocally, Mark banging out “the Star Spangled Banner” on piano, or Caitlyn strumming the harp. It’s not just that we are all musically-inclined; the truth is that we are all very affected emotionally by music.

From the time that Mark and Caitlyn were a year old up to when they turned five, the only thing that could calm them down on long car rides was music – anything from my mom’s CDs of church music to Anne Hathaway’s “Somebody to Love” from Ella Enchanted (the latter was a particular favorite). Even now, the twins are calmest and happiest when they are either playing music or listening to it on their Kindle Fires, and they get along best when they are experiencing music together.

Scott and my lives, too, have been linked together through music. Most evenings, I’ll come home and Scott’ll be sitting at the kitchen counter with his iPod. His eyes will light up, and he’ll exclaim that he’s found the best song on the planet and that I absolutely have to listen to it. I never know if the song will be pop, rock, rap, soul, bluegrass, or country, for we share such a deep appreciation for music that we both listen to all types of it. Therefore, whatever the genre, I already know the song half the time, but that doesn’t take away from how nice it is to sit together and enjoy listening to it.

Then, he’ll make his way over to the piano, and I’ll grab my guitar. We’ll pull up the song’s sheet music on his computer and lyrics on mine. I’ll sing the melody, and he’ll take on a tenor harmony. We usually switch instruments at some point, too. We’ll play for a while, winding down from the long day and reveling in the pure happiness that music brings to us.

Scott and I are also quite a nostalgic pair. We often reminisce together about childhood memories at our ski house in New Hampshire or at our time-share condo in Disney World this past spring break. There are so many songs that remind us of these moments. For example, before my little brother and sister were born, my parents owned a one-room condo in East Hampton. My dad kept all of his old records there, and for the duration of the time that we were on vacation, we would listen to songs like Crosby, Stills & Nash‘s “Southern Cross” and “Wasted on the Way.” Now, whenever I hear either of these two songs, I close my eyes and let myself ride on a wave of beach, ocean, and sun memories.

Because Scott and I have always been fervent exercisers – he an athlete and I a yogi and dancer – we have used music to motivate us to work out. Many are the nights that we kill ourselves in the gym together, he on the weight bench and I on the treadmill. We don’t speak, but I know that we are listening to many of the same songs, lifting and running to the beat of the music. We see the sweat dripping down each other’s faces, and it only makes us work harder. Who knew that good music could result in high calorie burn?

I think that every twin wishes that he or she had some kind of movie-like telepathic connection to their biological counterpart (which Susannah and Rebecca ’15 claim to have – read about it here!). After all, you came into the world at the same time. “The latest article”(s) and talk show hosts might claim that clairvoyance is scientifically legitimate, but who really knows? In any case, I think that the most meaningful relationships are the ones that are based on the passions that people share.