SISTERS ARE GOOD. More to the point, it has now been reaffirmed that sisters are good for you. Yup, you read it here first, and we’ve got another study to prove it. Want some sister stats to brighten up your day?
From the category archives:
Growing Up Together
By Paige Smith Orloff
I THOUGHT IT WAS ONLY PARENTS who felt (with guilt aplenty, of course) that they wished their children, sometimes, you know, just for a moment, time to collect one’s thoughts, or maybe just form a thought…could you all, please, just for a second, BE QUIET? Apparently, this is a sibling issue, too. A tale of how my son feels about little sister’s latest soliloquies.
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"Rather than come to blows with his sister over the missing Lego tree, he sat beneath his prayer flags and let the feelings wash over him." (Photo: Dave Lauridsen; Dwell)
By Anastasia Smith
THE HILARIOUS PHOTO BLOG Unhappy Hipsters posts photos from trendy design magazines along with little satirical captions. Why I especially love its captions about siblings.
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By Marion Roach Smith
IN THE SUMMER of 1924, five sisters worked in Washington, and happily someone had the great good sense to snap their photo. Don’t you just love them? I found this on Flickr, and then did a little research, and found out that they are (left to right) Goldie, Jeane, Marge, Belle, and Vera, all of whom worked as secretaries for five members of Congress from various states. Here they are, having their lunch. Read on, sisters.
Margaret's godfather, Max Hirsch
By Marion Roach Smith
THIS SATURDAY IS one of those emotional high holy days in our family. No, it’s not someone’s birthday, or anniversary. It’s not the day on which anyone graduates, or moves up, or gets inducted into anything. And while it’s simply Belmont Stakes day for millions of racing fans, for us, it’s the annual recognition of how it is my sister came to be named for a horse. Read the tale.
ONCE UPON A TIME there was no sisterhood, Marion says. “This is back when we were new to a school, or grade, the new kid in a neighborhood or a Brownie troop, back when no one seemed to like us. And then one day some kid passed us a pencil, or laughed at our joke, or slipped us a note. And soon there really was an ‘us,’ and nothing seemed more important, or special, or forever….” Read the show tune-laced tale of Marion’s first sisterhood.
WHAT A MEMOIR, AND WHAT A SISTER STORY. Having lived with Parkinson’s for 20 years, Zoe FitzGerald Carter’s headstrong mother decides she wants to end her life—and have her three daughters by her side when she does. When our Sister Marion read Zoe’s new, highly acclaimed book about it, called Imperfect Endings, she wrote to the author, and this generous new sister-friend reached right back, telling us her tale–one layered not just with hard times, but also with shared Cyndi Lauper songs and thick black eyeliner, and talking on the phone while eating (the true sign of sisterhood, she says). Zoe’s TSP interview is in our Galleries now.
THANKS TO MARION, TSP’S PAIGE IS facing a challenge this week: to put together her own personal playlist, a measuring out of her life in coffeehouse tunes, if you will. This isn’t quite as easy as it sounds, she says, but Joni and Joan figured into her mix. The hits from Paige’s soundtrack (come add yours).
STOP FORWARDING HER EMAILS composed by some anonymous person about how much women love their sisters-friends, Marion says. If you want to tell a sister you love her, fill her heart with song. Send her the song that you shared, stomach down, ankles crossed, lying on her canopied bed while you wondered aloud if someone would ever ever ever love you, or the song you learned to teach one another your dance steps, or while you practiced making out against the mirror, or driving back to college. Or…(get Marion’s full list, and add yours).
SPEAKING OF BEAUTIFUL braids, have you seen (or participated in) the Flickr pool Braid Wednesday? It features the beautiful braids of hundreds of Flickr users–kind of like a mini braid sisterhood! Our Sister Anastasia is a regular lurker; here’s why.
WHAT IS IT ABOUT BRAIDS and sisterhood that makes them such divine companions? The fantastic how-to book Beautiful Braids was a longtime staple in TSP Sister Anastasia’s childhood, but somehow she never really mastered the tricky task of braiding her own hair in the mirror. (When she’s home sometimes her mom still does it!) Maybe the secret of sisters with fabulous braids is that they do it for each other? After getting a tip on the braid-heavy photo above from Pam at Retro Renovation, Anastasia started thinking about her favorite plaited ladies from The Sister Project. Here’s what she found:
MARION’S SHE SAID, SHE SAID BLOG is one year old, and in its short life has taken on everything from the precious to the red hot between her older sister, Margaret, and herself. If you’ve been reading along you’ve learned that they don’t see most things the same way, and that on some topics—their mother, for instance—there is no seeing eye-to-eye. That behavior does not extend to their other parent. Read a love letter of sorts.
THIS SISTER CAN REALLY WIELD A NEEDLE AND ALSO THE LOVE, whether in her practice as a small-town country doctor in Canada or in her nature-inspired crafting—weblike crochet work, charming embroidery on thick, colorful felt, and all manner of sewing and knitting creations. Margie (short for Margaret) Oomen is the gentle genius behind the popular blog Resurrection Fern, and a force of nature herself online among the web’s most creative pairs of hands. Meet her in the TSP Galleries’ latest show.
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. 
