About The Sister Project
LIKE AN UNPLANNED late-life baby, The Sister Project wasn’t meant to happen. What was intended was a book, co-authored by me (Margaret Roach, age 55) and my younger sister, memoir-writing teacher Marion Roach Smith, 53. While Marion was writing away diligently, I was over at my house carrying on a torrid a late-night romance with internet 2.0, and with WordPress in particular. The latest love child of that romance is The Sister Project, a blog network or family of related blogs: sister blogs, you might say.
The more Marion and I delved into our book idea, a joint memoir that circles around “nature or nurture?” puzzle of our same-but-different realities, the more I got to thinking about the other sister experiences out there.
What means “sister?” as the index card on my TSP office corkboard asks. What, indeed?
So I starting asking other women I came into contact with. Sisterhood starts like that: with the people closest to you. Like Paige Smith Orloff, 43, one of the earliest commenters on my first blog, A Way to Garden. Paige (a foodie type) lives just up the road, it turns out (so much for the worldwide web; it’s also the in-your-backyard web, apparently). I was struck how Paige was deftly mentoring her little girl to be a good sister to her son, despite having no first-hand experience with genetic sisterhood herself. I was likewise struck by how many “sisters” Paige had chosen for herself: sister-friends.
I also asked my “What means sister?” question of Anastasia Smith, 24, who lived similarly close by, the daughter to friends of mine and sister to a brother. I knew Anastasia (who is now in grad school for fiction writing) had delved into gender studies in college, and that she always hears feminism in the word sister, a kind of universal or collective sisterhood—another take on things.
The conversation just kept going, and with my genetic sister, Marion, we soon found ourselves in my living room, brewing TSP. Paige Smith Orloff and Anastasia Smith and Marion Roach Smith therefore form our TSP family tree so far, with one caveat: Though there are a lot of Smiths in the original cast, none of them is related, at least not genetically. Don’t ask.
“The Smiths” and I white-boarded and push-pinned our way to some initial thoughts, and to a structure for The Sister Project, a three-part blend:
The Blogs tab is, well, the personal blogs, each of our takes on the subject of sisters;
The Sisterpedia tab is the reference section, the trivia trove of sisterhood;
The Galleries are where we’ll serve up curated “shows” to shine a light on creative works by and about the subject of sisterhood: fine arts and crafts, poetry and fiction.
The Smiths and I continue the thread of “What means sister?” daily by IM and Skype, email and phone. It’s been nice being a small family, but we intend to grow and diversify, and that’s where you come in.
Your entries, which for now take the form of comments on the Blogs, in Sisterpedia and the Galleries, will help yield a network that suits all shapes of sisters. Fill in the blank: You know you’re a sister when________. Or answer this: What means sister? You tell us, and recommend sisters we should showcase, report on, or perhaps have here as other bloggers, once we get past the wobbly infant stage.
And one more thing: As the oldest sister in the original mix, I reserve the right to do the talking, at least on the TSP homepage, which I’ll be programming to show off all the faces of the TSP network. I’ll also provide a counterpoint to my genetic baby sister Marion’s writing on the She Said, She Said blog—if I can get a word in edgewise. Sisters.–Margaret Roach, November 2008 (updated August 2009)
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We are grateful to Erica Berger, a sister friend to Margaret for nearly two decades, for being our staff photographer at TSP, and creating all the photos on this page. That’s me and Marion (on a stool behind me, getting her makeup and hair tweaked for our family photos); Paige and then Anna were shot at the same team meeting. You’ll hear more about and from Erica as her TSP role widens in the coming days. Meantime, you can enjoy an album she put together about growing up as sister to a brother, playing now in the Galleries.
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First time here? Here's the idea: TSP is a network of blogs about the many facets of the word sister, and the concept of sisterhood. A sisterhood of sister blogs, you could say. Whatever sister means to you, from identical twin to sister-in-law (or in-friendship or in-feminism), we’ll make room to listen in about it or express it on TSP. Like the slogan up top says, “Don’t you have something to say to your sister?” We've got galleries of art and literature by and about sisters, and a Sisterpedia of sisterly trivia...but now we're getting ahead of ourselves. The quick study: 
As the suffix of its name suggests, 
No surprise, really, that sisterhood, often life’s longest relationship and always one of its most important, has been the Muse for so much creative self-expression by women, and also by men. 
{ 47 comments… read them below or add one }
My sisters are all dead. Two of them I never knew. I am the child of our father’s second wife. When my nephew sent me dozens of old photos from his Aunt Mary’s photo album, I knew I could turn them into a sisters’ journey in the voice of Mary, if she’d blogged; fictive because I must invent many facts.
It has been difficult. It was a shock that the life of F. Scott Fitzgerald and Zelda, though a parallel in time, was totally unrelated to the life of my sisters, but I kept Zelda’s name as a token of the era, rather than Mary’s real middle name. I spend lots of time in the archives recreating life in the early twentieth century to make this authentic as there’s nobody left who remembers life prior to WW II.
I was unable to blog for weeks when I realized that Blanche was going to die. She’d never been real to me until Mary told her story. Right now we’re awaiting the first grandchild in the family; my mother and father have not met and my brother and I are not born yet.
The trouble with a historical blog is that it reads backwards in time if one’s story starts in chronological order.
Welcome, Nell Jean (and Mary, and Blanche, and maybe even Zelda!). I love hearing how you have chosen to explore your own sistory (sister history), and yes, it does sound challenging to think in reverse. Thanks for sharing it.
RANDOM, but reading this brought to mind stories of the Smith Sisters of Glastonbury, CT where I grew up. They were a wonderfully eccentric, stubborn and brilliant family, best known for their abolitionist and suffragist stances, and for learning Hebrew in order to translate the entire bible.
Welcome, Laura. Of course you would come bearing new of yet another gaggle of Smiths (as I am already surrounded by Anastasia, Marion and Paige). We will look into the Glastonbury part of the clan. Hope to see you here again, Smith or not.
My sisters–We are three. We live almost equidistant from each other at three points on this earth (USA, India, New Zealand). We form an equilateral triangle of sisterhood. We are rarely together to see the crest of a sun rise or the face of a new moon, but we know there is always one of us awake, every moment of our lives–and that is enough.
Our fourth sister is a star in the Heavens. In an Asian American anthology (in press) entitled, “Yellow as turmeric, fragrant as cloves,” I have a poem for her called “Mustard Seed.” She remains a little girl while the three of us grow old hanging on to the edge of the earth, feeling enormously blessed.
Welcome, Lalita. I am so struck at the eloquence of your comment, the image of one of you three always at the ready, standing guard at any moment. Beautiful. Please come see us again soon…and send your sisters.
Dear Lalita: I think of the conjunction only a few days ago on December 1st, triangulating the Moon, Venus and Jupiter. I stopped and stared at the cosmic geometry that night and nearly knelt under its suggestive persuasion. I suspect that the next time – every time, perhaps – I see such a conjunction in the future I will think of you and your sisters. Thank you. Please come back again.
I am off to Buffalo next week and hope while there to finally begin a project which has been incubating for a long time. I want to interview my 82 year old mother and “the ladies”–the women with whom she has been having lunch every Wednesday for nearly 60 years. To me, their group of 12 or so is an inspiring community of sisters. They’ve supported each other through so many life changes and challenges which their boomer children dished out. Maybe I’ll have something rich to share. Tucked behind the sisterproject is a motherdaughter project, too.
Dear Marion and Margaret:
Thank you both for welcoming me (and my sisters) to this family of sisters. I have only just been able to visit your lovely website since writing to you. I am here in New Zealand spending Christmas with one of my sisters and her husband. The weather is warm and balmy. Flowers bloom in profusion. People are walking around in shorts. I would like to extend my warmest wishes via this website to sisters in all corners of our earth.
Welcome, Sharon. I hope you will keep us posted about the interview among what sounds like an incredible circle of sister-friends. Wishing you a good trip up into snow country, and a great set of interviews.
Thanks, Lalita, for your good wishes from warm corners of the Earth. We look forward to hearing more from you, too, in the year to come, and wish you all happiness meantime.
Hi, Sharon. Welcome. Each week on my blog I’m offering memoir tips. Here’s the first one from a few weeks ago. http://thesisterproject.com/roach/side-dishes-lets-write-it-all-down. Maybe these will help you in your exploration of mother and her ladies – which, by the way, is a marvelous, remarkable project; good luck with, and please let us know what issue and wonders you encounter.
Hi, again, Lalita: So glad you and your sister are in the sunshine. Please stay in touch with us while we huddle around the computer screen, seeking the warmth of the sisterhood.
What a great blog. I’ve been blogging with my four sisters for about a year and a half. I value the relationships I have with them greatly, especially as we’re now starting to branch out by getting married and moving away for work or school (& love!).
Welcome, Erica. I just had a visit to meet you and your four sisters on fiveblondes. (FIVE, did you say FIVE of you? Wow.) Having a red-headed sister, I have always thought that ONE is enough. (Don’t tell Marion I said that, OK?) Thanks for your encouraging words…and I think we all need to learn more about one another, and soon.
Yo, Margaret: I heard that.
Hi, Erica. And welcome. As Margaret said, we love your blog. Please include us in your regular sisterly correspondence by continuing to visit. We’ll be looking out for your other sisters, as well.
Great project Margaret! Doone and I visited your site with great interest!
Hope you are well….tomorrow is a great day in history!
Welcome, Corinne. Thank you for the good words of encouragement. And yes: a great day, indeed. Trying to find an extra box of Kleenex over here.
I read about this blog on the Mason-Dixon blog..I have been reading it since practically the beginning as well as a few others. I have two living sisters as well as one who I lost when I was 18 and she was 21. My big sister was gone and my status was elevated to her position right after I became a first time mother — the baby was a girl, of course. My two sisters, my aunt (born late in life to my grandmother–same age as one sister), my niece, and my two daughters have a knitting group and meet every month to work on projects for charity, for gifts for special friends and anything else our hearts desire. I have been truly blessed to have these ladies as part of my life.
Welcome, Deedee. Thank you for your visit, and your tender story of sisterhood. I hope we see you soon again.
Ok…so this is really great! I am from a great big family and have seven, yes that’s right, SEVEN younger sisters! As is always the case, everyone has a story right? My story is one of love and steadfastness…two words that I would use to describe sisters. We lost a sister in 2002, and in 2007, another sister was diagnosed with stage IV breast cancer AND in a complete twist of fate, another sister was diagnosed with the same cancer in November of 2008. Our sisterhood has become a haven. We have tended to box out the men in our lives; we speak the same language. Sometimes its the language of sadness, or of joy, or of liquor and lots of food. We are fighters and all share a wicked sense of humour. It is our greatest strength. Thanks for your site.
Kathleen, Kathleen…welcome. Now what can I say except thanks for writing your sister story here. Eight girls!
Have you “met” my only sister, red-headed Marion, who has a tactic for working with loss, a list-making practice? She wrote about it before the holidays, when other sisters were coming and talking about loss; it’s called The List That Helps With Loss. I know she’d love to meet you on her blog.
Hey, Kathleen: Welcome, sister. Love and steadfastness. I will repeat those words tonight as I fall asleep, using them as my new sleepytime mantra. Thank you. You’re right, of course. Those are the words to guide us. Please keep coming back. We wold love love love to hear about the 8 sisters.
I’ve only begun to scratch the surface of this blog, but I really like what I have read so far. My sister is twelve years older than I; she left home when I was six, but we have always been connected by the hip it seems. She is my best friend. Ironically we have children that are the same ages. We have always lived far apart – she in Wininipeg, me in Louisiana – she in Panama, me in Washington state – but I know if I needed her she would find a way to be by my side and she knows the same of me. She wrote me this poem as a christmas gift, it seems appropriat to share it with you.
Webster Girls
By Mary for Megan
Within a former house of ours
Boys and boys were everywhere,
But little maids were only two.
Not snips nor snails descibed our boys
Running barefoot here and there
Wild snakes and spiders had to do.
Not ev’rything was sweet and nice
About our pair of girls,
Though spice was certainly true.
Mister Time he changes things.
Boys, our men, are everywhere,
With sugar wives sweetly true.
For them, not snakes nor spiders now,
Just dog or cat type tails
Are housed within a home or two.
They’re not made of womanly vice
Our Webster grownup girls,
But they do what they have to do.
For one, a man and farm with
Snakes and snails and various tails
And grapes and hay and gardens two.
For the other, instead of husband
And home and cars and tails there’s schools,
Making a teaching nomad life do.
But when sisters are together
There’s wine and song, still not much sugar
Since spice remains certainly true.
I also found The Sister Project at masondixonknitting.com. I am one of four sisters, best friends. We have loved and supported each other always, growing up and through careers, marriages, divorces, deaths, child-bearing and rearing, and adoptions. Three years ago, when the eldest [I am she.] turned 50, we began an annual Sisters Week. It has become a time of retreat that we anticipate with joy for 51 weeks of the year. I look forward to exploring and following TSP!
Welcome to Megan, and to Debbie.
Megan, thank you for the poem, and for the tale of the joined-at-the-hip but geographically and age divided sisterhood. Come see us soon again (and bring Mary).
Debbie, we will be wanting more details of Sisters Week and what events are on the schedule. Love it, and thank you for telling us your sister story.
What a thrill to come across a site so inspiring! I have an identical twin sister. We consider it such a blessing to have been born into this world together and to really share it. After graduating from college, we even taught in the same elementary school classroom for a number of years. We now own several websites together and find working together very rewarding. I look forward to reading more from you and your sister.
I have sisters I never met I have been a sister to my brothers that felt more like a mom, I loved my sisters more as I got older and one sister just met 4or5 times and feel as we have been together forever. There are so many emotions when it comes to this group of sislings(misspelt but it fits), it just feels like love.
Welcome, Kathy. If it feels like love…well, then it must be love. :) Thanks for visiting and sharing the story.
Yo, Kathy: Sislings is my absolutely my new favorite word. Thank you for that, and for coming our way. Please come back soon.
On December 3rd, last year, I wrote about us–three sisters, who live in three corners of this earth-(New Zealand, India and the U.S.) and of our fourth sister, who has been a star in the Heavens since she was five years old. Well, just recently, three of us met in New Zealand–and this time, at last, it was for no reason at all. No funeral, no wedding, no responsibility, nothing at all. Just to Be. Not since I left India in 1969, back when we were all girls did we laugh and love so hard. And our fourth sister? Well, she was there too, in the Southern Hemisphere skies with us. As well, she appeared on the page (pg. 123) of an anthology entitled “Yellow as Turmeric, Fragrant as Cloves” (Ed. Anne Marie Fowler, Deep Bowl Press, 2008.) The title of the book comes from the poem (Mustard Seed) written to her some years ago. We all came together at last!
oh such blessings from “random” clickings. Thank you for what I’ve been seeing, reading, and swirling in thus far. Treasures and inspiration. I’ll be back , on a quieter evening, with a glass of good red, and maybe some words.
Welcome, Deb. We like the idea that you can come here to swirl; please do so anytime. See ylou soon (and bring any/all sisters, along w/that bottle of red).
Dear Sister(s) – where are you?
I am not sure how I found this blog but that makes sense to me as it mirrors my strangely thorough yet random search for the sister(s) I never had.
Spending my life trying to friend each and every potential sister person in hopes of finding her/them at last is exhilarating and exhausting; and always: disappointing in the end.
Although many of my relationships have been lovely, it’s not for long that I can hold off the reality – that these women aren’t my sisters; that in fact some of them have sisters/brothers/or both of their own; that I am a stand-in, an understudy, a pinch hitting place marker for when the real deal is ready.
I have envied others for their siblings – and from a young age battened up a part of my heart so it wouldn’t break under the weight of loneliness, resentment and the huge duty of going forward, by myself.
I am not sure how I feel about all of it except to say that lately, in my Mother, I find a sister of sorts. And it feels like grace.
Many thanks for creating this space.
Welcome, Pritha. You know, tha’s a beautiful sister story you tell, even without a sister. Thank you for it; so well-put. See you soon again, we hope.
I scoff at blogs and cringe at the “me-ness” of facebook, but my close friend and partner in parenting (we both have four children, almost matching in ages) died this morning, and I’m here alone and so very tired of crying. Trying to find something to help me through the evening I discovered your site — Thank you all for your eloquence and unexpected comfort. I’m sure I’ll be back often.
Welcome, Marybeth. We are happy to have you here, but not for the reason that brought you. Oh, my. SO many sisters have come here with stories of loss (you can see links to them in the text of this little homepage teaser and after it...poems, lists, essays). I will consolidate them into a page to make it easier to find the whole body of work, promise. But meantime, keep hollering out to us. We’re here.
Oh, Mary Beth–I am so so sorry. I hope you find comfort here and elsewhere, and through your tears, I hope you smile at many glorious memory of your treasured friend. Sending a virtual hug to a stranger is an odd thing to do–but there it is. Consider yourself hugged through the ether by a woman you don’t know. You might find some words of comfort here, if you haven’t already checked it out…
You know you are a sister when you realize that you would NEVER talk to your brother unless you were related! But you also realize he will be the only family you have once your mother is gone. I have no husband or children. He has a wife and two children. So, despite his gun-toting, Republican, survivalist bent, and his notion that seeing the world can be adequately accomplished by visiting Disneyworld, I still need him. THAT is being a sister.
Welcome, Lynne. Well said. I think this is more common than most people talk about, so thank you. Hope to see you soon again.
Hi, Ladies,
I’m a writer who has a food column called “Food for Thought” in The Gloucester Daily Times, http://www.gloucestertimes.com/ – Gloucester, ma. I’ve just written a column about a wonderful pair of sisters – The Brass Sisters, who collect heirloom recipes which they’ve assembled into two cookbooks. (They’ve been nominated for James Beard Award, and Food and Wine has chosen both cookbooks as the top 25 cookbooks of the year.) They’re charming sisters, and theirs a video of them cooking that goes along with my article.
If you’re there, check out my column entitled “Old Boyfriend Pie!” You can find it all on my twitter, too – @heather_atwood
I heart this blog!
Heather Atwood
Welcome, Heather…and we will go look at it posthaste. Thanks for the tip. All your kinds words are much appreciated. :)
Thank you for creating this website and recognizing the incredible close bond we sisters share. I have been blessed with a younger (1Oyrs) sister and i really mean this, 7 loving supportive sister-in-laws
My best, Karen
Welcome, Karen. Seven sisters-in-law? Wow. I guess you can teach us all a thing or two about sisterhood of that variety. Hope to see you again soon.
i happened upon this site accidentally and was instantly on board with the theme. no matter how many different stories are told, how many different lives are lived, no matter where or when – the ‘sisterhood’ is familiar to us all.
but then – a sad and angry knot in my stomach reading Ms. Wighton’s post and the reply. how CASUALLY a non-liberal is dismissed as being unworthy of sisterly bonds except for the fact that eventually, there won’t BE anyone else to talk to!
how utterly supercilious and how utterly condesceding of you to lower your standards far enough to be a sister! gosh, i hope your brother understands how you have so blessed him, despite his differences, and is properly grateful.
i’m one of six sisters, no brothers. we’re all close in age and we’re all as different as snowflakes. we range all the way from uber-liberal to uber-conservative, loner to extrovert, creative to totally unoriginal, kind to cruel, arrogant to humble, brilliant to dull…
i won’t be returning to this site. not because of Ms. Wighton’s post, but because of Margaret’s concurrence.
Welcome, Zee, and glad it felt like a “fit,” though sorry that my comment seemed to spoil it for you. No harm intended.
Limbic Resonance. That’s part of what I find in all these genetic and non-genetic women I call my sisters. I love this idea that my nervous system isn’t self-contained, that it’s always trying for resonance with another nervous system. So when a sister calls just when I’m thinking of her it isn’t “out of the blue” as they say; it’s because there’s this physical attunement to each other. I’ve written about two of these sisters recently in my writing group’s blog, Words We Women Write. While I was doing the writing, all sorts of “attuning” was happening. Other sisters called and what they wanted to talk about was Exactly what I was trying to put on paper. I love the whole serendipity of it all.
Patty
Welcome, Patty. Very well put. Hope we see you again with some more of your sister philosophy. :)
I’m so excited to have stumbled onto TSP, especially the Kitchen pages — what a wonderful collection of kindred spirtis!
Thank you for sharing!
-Dawn