By Marion Roach Smith
THERE WAS A time when our dogs divided us. It happens in neighborhoods, and it did, in ours. Each of us lived behind our own electric fence, keeping our dogs in our own territories, allowing for no mixing of our pedigreed charges. The humans walked, we waved, but we knew little of one another’s lives, except, perhaps, that it was the woman in each home who walked the dog. That much was clear. And for a while that’s how it was: Not much contact, little to say, we walked our dogs along the perimeter of each other’s lives. One day last week was different.
From the category archives:
Sisters We Choose
By Paige Smith Orloff
CERTAINLY NOT PICTURES. Nope. As a friend told me a few weeks back, I’ve got a face for radio. And now, you can hear exactly what it looks like. As with everything, there’s a backstory…
By Marion Roach Smith
AND YOU THOUGHT your family home was strange. How about growing upon a “divorce ranch,” one of the famous places where women who once wanted out of their marriages could live as “residents” while awaiting a Nevada divorce? Here’s what got me thinking of this.
Jamie sports Style Council's recommended cutoff sweatshirt look.
By Anastasia Smith
LATELY I’VE BEEN LOVING The Seventeen Magazine Project, a social experiment and blog from 18-year-old high school senior, Jamie Kelles. The project guidelines require that Jamie live strictly according to the gospel of Seventeen Magazine for 30 days (from May 21 to the day of her high school graduation, June 21), in order to investigate further “the role of beauty/fashion magazines in society.” Her findings? Well, nearly to the end of this mad sociologist experiment, Jamie has blogged witty insight on all kinds of teen fem issues. Here are some of the highlights.
By Paige Smith Orloff
TO ALL THE SATC2-haters out there, to you I say: You’ve missed the point. I LOVED the new Sex and the City movie, and I’m not afraid to say it. Here’s what I thought of the latest from that band of sister-friends.
ARTIST, EDUCATOR AND YOGI Karen Arp-Sandel is on a mixed-media mission. Whether “getting gluey” constructing mixed-media collage and assemblage pieces, sketching landscapes, or instructing students in the finer points of downward dog and sun salutations, Karen wants everyone she encounters through her art to embrace her mantra: “Art is NOT separate.” Art, for Karen, is daily, and in particular, it is the warp and weave of the various sisterhood experiences she’s come to treasure. Meet Karen now.
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OUR SISTER PAIGE WAS INDULGING in a manicure (her first in more months than she cares to count) a couple of weeks ago, and the (20 years younger, egads) manicurist and Paige started talking tattoos. The manicurist is inked, Paige is not, and she swears it’s generational. What do you think…and do you tattoo, sister?
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By Marion Roach Smith
NEVER WILL ANYONE ever tell off anyone as well as did Dixie Carter here, in defense of her designing woman sister. In honor of Dixie, who died April 10, we give you this. Memorize it, sisters. You may need this one day.
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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.
WE TSP SISTERS WE THRILLED TO SEE THAT OUR PREMIER regional website, Rural Intelligence, went to visit one of the area’s premier bloggers, mid-mod-madness queen Pam of Retro Renovation. Whether you live in the Hudson Valley-Litchfield Hills-Berkshire Mountain area of New York-Connecticut-Massachusetts like we all do or not, you won’t want to miss the story. Pam preaches to a national audience the doctrine of “mid-century modest” and “love the house you’re in” and other good smart stuff. Meet her. (Photo by Erica Berger.)
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WHEN TSP’S MARGARET AND MARION did a reading the other night, they were wowed by one of the other authors on the program, Catherine Chung, who read from a just-finished first novel, and whose work is part of the Paris Press anthology Sisters that we love so much. Now we see the talented Cathy has a short story on Granta, the website for the Cambridge University magazine, founded in 1889, of the same name. (Pretty nice company you keep, young sister-friend.) Thought you might like to read her piece, called “Wish,” which the Granta editors noted for its “rhythm, poise and restraint,” and keep an eye out for bigger things from Cathy. We will be.
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MARION AND HER DOGS. It’s a relationship she’s written about before, referring to it as “the sisterhood of the dog” in more than one blog post. And whenever the subject of Marion and her dogs comes up, the words just seem to tumble out. But then every once in a while, no words are needed. Don’t believe her? Press play above. And then go say hello to our two-legged, dog-loving sister.
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THE NEW MAMMOGRAM GUIDELINES are confounding, TSP’s Sister Marion says; she thinks we can agree on that. Ever since that government task force reported last November that most women don’t need mammograms in their 40s, that they should get one every two years starting at 50, that breast self-exams do no good, and that women shouldn’t be taught to do those exams, Marion has been dismayed as well as confused. But after developing some pain and tenderness, she scheduled a scan and, as if in response to all this unsteadying noise, a steadfast sisterhood was there to greet her. Read her story of the sisterhood of the breast.
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. 
