MY NOSE WAS buried in my shopping list last week at the market, when a familiar voice interrupted my internal debate (Broccoli? Cabbage? Cauliflower?). The encounter wasn’t a surprise. But the message? An unexpected delight, especially evocative today, the official publication day of Margaret’s beautiful memoir.

It turned out that Ellen, a fellow mom at my kids’ school, a lovely, light-filled woman who I don’t know well, but who always makes me smile, had just discovered TSP. She wanted me to know that she’d found us while searching for info on her favorite astrologer (yep, our one and only Sheilaa Hite). And she wanted me to know that she was loving what she found here. She’s the kind of woman who talks to her own sister every single day, so she knows what means sisterhood. I’ve defined it for myself, in many ways through my life, but with special care since Margaret invited me into this unruly gang we call TSP.

I was an early commenter on Margaret’s magnificent garden blog, A Way To Garden. She came visiting my blog, left a hello, we chit-chat-commented back and forth, and before long, I was trundling down Margaret’s own dirt road to visit her and her garden–our first date. We like to tell people we met online. She and Marion and Anastasia were already sisters of different sorts, but soon they invited me to the party as well. We have lived through some things, the four of us, since our first meeting in Margaret’s cozy house; you can read about some of them in The Book. Mostly, there, though, you’ll read about Margaret and her search for self in a post-power-suit world.

I relate to that search, having packed up my own power suits nearly a decade ago. My motivations were both the same–the frustrations of reining in my own ideas in the service of others–and different: I had a toddler at home who seemed more compelling than many of those boss-like others. It took another three years before I’d trade in L.A.’s fast lanes for my corner of rural paradise-slash-insanity. In the process, I had to redefine myself (yeah, yeah, still working on that one, but coming ever closer), find new friends and face down fears. Mostly mine didn’t slither, like Margaret’s (read the book already if you don’t know what I mean by that snakey reference!), but they had no less powerful an impact on my transformation from a Hollywood television executive to a backroads writer.

Margaret writes in her book of the teachers who helped her find her away along a new, ever-unexpected path. Well, readers, I’m here to tell you, she’s been one of mine. As a mentor and a friend, Margaret is matchless. And when I ran into Ellen, a sweet sister at the supermarket, her effusive praise for this site reminded of how it all started here: escapees from two different rat-races, a couple different kinds of sisterhoods, and connections forged easily in blog comments as in the produce aisle. Sisterhood is where you find it, and I’m blessed to find it here.

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IF LOVE MEANS never having to say you’re sorry, as Ali McGraw famously said to Ryan O’Neal in Love Story, then my sweet daughter must really, REALLY love her big brother. And her father. And me.

“Sorry” is not a part of my daughter’s otherwise-extensive vocabulary. “Sorry”, to my little Rock, means defeat. It means shame. And this little gemstone of a girl would rather leave dinner half-eaten, miss the family movie, be denied her hot chocolate than ‘fess up to any transgression, no matter how inconsequential. When asked to submit via sorry, she hides her face, often under the nearest table or chair, shrieks at a pitch that by rights should cut glass, and pretty much erases all trace of the beloved, brilliant girl we all love and (usually) adore.

I’ve been thinking about the subject of shame, immersed as I am (thanks to my amazing Mondo Beyondo Dream Lab class) in the world of writer and researcher Brené Brown, who focuses much of her research on this topic. But pre-Brené, like, it turns out, like most people, I’d never much pondered shame before.

Brown’s research, to massively oversimplify, teaches that shame is an emotion with ancient anthropological roots but no modern benefit, and that often, our hardwired desire to avoid shame prevents us from living authentic, joyful lives. How can this be? In part, because shame is the inevitable companion of  perfectionism: we try to present as perfect in a desperate race against allowing our warts-and-all (that is, REAL) selves to be seen. (Does this explain the hiding under the table, perhaps? If she can’t see us…)

Brown’s books address the results of her research on shame, the “guideposts” (her term) she’s identified along a path that leads to a life free of shame-based suffering, and with a more honest, authentic self presentation. People who practice what Brown calls “shame resilience” she labels “wholehearted”.  And I want, with my whole heart, for my sweet, stubborn daughter to live out loud with all of hers.

But to do that: she has to learn to tell her whole story, without leaving out the bits she’d rather us not see. Says Brené, “Owning our story and loving ourselves through that process is the bravest thing we’ll ever do.” Amen, sister.

I’m working on applying Brené’s findings to my own life, and my kids’. But I wonder: how do you help your kids face up to shame and move beyond it? Helpful hints on this latest mom-ing struggle would be the best valentine any of you could send me. (And in the meantime, I’ve got to get back to work with my sweet girl, making Valentines like those pictured above–the wholehearted kind.)

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Last year, I blew off resolutions, and took on a revolution instead. I vowed to move more, write more, create more. I don’t know about the “more” part, but I was successful in bringing each of these changes into my life during a year that presented many challenges, both emotional and logistic. I didn’t run a marathon or finish my  novel, and at the end of the year, I regretfully dropped out of my art class due to an overloaded family schedule. But I did manage to shift my thinking a bit, to transform those revolutionary ideas into “normal” parts of me and my everyday life. I count that as a victory.

This year, I want to do more of the same, but I’ve also been looking for a different kind of transformation. I struggled over the last year with not losing myself in a sea of family responsibilities. If that sounds like a bourgeois housewife’s complaint–well, it is. I can’t pretend otherwise. But last year I realized that in managing my responsibilities to other people, I’d stopped examining my own place in all our lives: not just the work I do, but the person I am.

The video above, from the TEDx conferences, presented me with my “eureka” moment on, wouldn’t you know it, New Year’s Day. Brené Brown’s ideas about vulnerability and self-love left me speechless with identification, and so I went searching for more.

Jen Lemen and Andrea Scher are the brilliant dreamers behind MondoBeyondo, an online class dedicated to helping people identify and achieve their dreams. I’ve been tempted, so tempted, to take part in the past. But my search for more Brené Brown? It led me straight to Jen and Andrea: they’re collaborating with Brené on the next session of the class. So you know what? This time, I didn’t hesitate. I signed up. It started yesterday, and I’m already blown away by the size and enthusiasm of the class community. Follow along as I work on dreaming big and letting go of perfect in 2011.

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AM I ALONE in having a too-long list of authors I’ve been meaning to read, it seems forever, yet somehow never get around to? Allegra Goodman, a prolific and much-beloved novelist, is on that list for me, but I’m taking charge. Right now.

USA Today called Goodman “a modern day Jane Austen.” Need I say more? Her latest novel, The Cookbook Collector, is next up for my summer reading. From the publisher’s synopsis:

Emily and Jessamine Bach are opposites in every way: Twenty-eight-year-old Emily is the CEO of Veritech, twenty-thre-year-old Jess is an environmental activist and graduate student in philosophy. Pragmatic Emily is making a fortune in Silicon Valley, romantic Jess works in an antiquarian bookstore. Emily is rational and driven, while Jess is dreamy and whimsical. Emily’s boyfriend, Jonathan, is fantastically successful. Jess’s boyfriends, not so much—as her employer George points out in what he hopes is a completely disinterested way.

Bicoastal, surprising, rich in ideas and characters,The Cookbook Collector is a novel about getting and spending, and about the substitutions we make when we can’t find what we’re looking for: reading cookbooks instead of cooking, speculating instead of creating, collecting instead of living. But above all it is about holding on to what is real in a virtual world: love that stays.

Apparently we here on TSP are not alone in thinking that sisterly reads are perfect for summer time: the American Library Association’s great Booklist site suggests “sisters” as a perfect August book club theme. So what are you waiting for? Read along with me; I’m taking The Cookbook Collector on vacation with me (beach, here I come!) and will finish it by August 12–plenty of time for a virtual sisterly read-along!

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WHO COULD RESIST a book with the subtitle “My Life in a Harem”? OK, probably a lot of people. But I’m not one of them.

Jillian Lauren looks like a model, planned to be an actress, is married to a rock star…and along the way, ended up as one of dozens of women spirited out of their “normal” lives to provide companionship, and sex, to the Prince Jefri, the younger brother of the Sultan of Brunei. She also happens to be a witty and compelling storyteller, with a great command of humor and a gift for self-examination that feels authentic, and never forced.

In a memoir that is much more sensitive and introspective than sensationalized, Lauren outlines her journey from rebellious kid to teen stripper to New York City escort and ultimately her recruitment to be one of the group of girls and young women kept to “entertain” the Prince and his friends.

Lauren clearly delights in remembering and recreating the odd, dysfunctional sisterhood that developed among the harem-mates, who run the gamut from manipulative and mean to much-too-young. It all sounds like it would be pretty tawdry, and some of it is, but Lauren’s gift as a writer is making the reader understand the thousand steps that led her to Brunei, without looking for pity or relying upon sentimentality or defiance. When she falls for the Prince, I couldn’t help but empathize with a young girl’s need (she was 19!) to win the prize: in this case, the love, or at least the attention, of the real-life prince. But particularly wrenching is her inability to deal with coming home, a situation that is so challenging that ultimately, she goes back to Brunei for a second tour of duty.

Lauren is smart, her prose is sharp and unsparing of detail. If you’re in New York City, you can hear Lauren read from Some Girls tomorrow night at 8 p.m. as part of the In The Flesh Erotic Reading series. (The venue? It’s called Happy Ending. Who could ask for more?) Admission is free; if you go, be sure to tell us all about it.

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A work from Karen Arp-Sandel's collaborative art project, FE-MAIL

LATE LAST YEAR, in the throes of a long and somewhat dark winter, I wrote about my new year’s revolutions. Allowing myself to make art was one of the key changes I made last  year, and I owe it to my amazing teacher and gifted artist Karen Arp-Sandel. Amid reawakening my creative spark and her own myriad projects, Karen was kind enough to work with me on a profile of her and her art for TSP. Read the results here, and let me know how your creative endeavors are going. Me? Inspired by Karen and her current collaborator, Suzi Banks Baum, I’m tackling a round of mail art. Watch your mailboxes, sisters.

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YOU PROBABLY KNOW by now that here at The Sister Project, we can’t resist a good sister story, and we love the sisters known as nuns, but this particular piece of news took us by surprise. Bill Murray is one of our favorite actors and comedians (if you haven’t seen his hilarious turn as himself in last year’s Zombieland, rent it. Now.) but we didn’t know that one of his eight siblings is a Catholic nun.

Sister Nancy Murray has been a member of the Adrian Dominican Sisters since 1966. But she also shares Bill’s dramatic tendencies: since last year, she’s been touring the country in her one-woman performance about the life of a 14th century nun, St. Catherine of Siena. Catch the show, tell us your review, and let us know if you spot Bill. Apparently he’s quite a fan of his older sister.

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WE TRY to keep track of notable sisters’ birthdays, so that we can remind ourselves (and you, of course) of all the women we admire, and acknowledge them on their special days. But as we were putting together our plans for this month, we noticed that an awful lot of spectacular sisters were born this month. This Friday is the birthday of Indy car racing pioneer Janet Guthrie, and next week, we’ll be celebrating actress Lynn Redgrave, Civil War heroine Harriet Tubman, singer Liza Minnelli and photographer Diane Arbus. That’s a whole lot of talent packed into seven days. As with everything around here, we’ve got theories about why.

I say, it must be because March is also MY birthday month, and, let it not be forgotten, my daughter The Rock’s. Why shouldn’t the two of us get to share a monthlong celebration with the likes of Gloria Steinem, Liza Minelli and Aretha Franklin? We should, no question. But TSP’s Sister Margaret has a different explanation.

“What about all those June weddings?” said she, dryly, when I mentioned that I was certain the universe was just placing me and my sweet daughter in the august company in which we belong. “Lots of people get married in June…stands to reason babies would be born nine months later…” Harrumph.

As ever with Margaret, she’s got a point. However, for the record, my parents were married in August, and I was born a good nine years after their wedding. Now my anniversary–it actually is in June. And the year before The Rock was born, we celebrated it on vacation in Hawaii. We already know I’m an oversharer, but I think that’s enough on this particular subject.

Stay tuned this month for news of some of the many incredible women (not just me and my daughter) who were born in this most auspicious and energetic month!

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SOMETIMES WHEN I’M HOMEBOUND with cabin fever, I find my friends in unlikely places…or at least I find their words and their wisdom, even if they can’t actually sit down for a cuppa. Now that I’m buried under nearly two feet of snow, I have to find places to go for my does of sisterhood when, truthfully, I really can’t go anywhere. My rural existence would be a whole lot lonelier without the internet.

We all know the time suck that is Facebook. More hours than I care to own up to have been lost in the maze of connections available there. Did you know you can use it to keep track of what’s happening here on the Sister Project there? Get to it!

I was on Facebook long before I joined Twitter, but Twitter is where I’ve found more new friends. Take amazing writer Susan Orlean, for example. Without corresponding with Susan (in 140 characters or less, natch) I would never have found my group of fellow chicken-raisers. Yep. There’s an online kink for everyone, even small-scale chicken farmers, and this group gives me more resources and info that I knew I wanted.

Farming isn’t the only interest I can indulge online. Sister Marion’s written before about SheWrites, an incredible community of women writers. I love digging through the posts there, finding new bylines to read, and people facing the same terror of the blank page.

The blank page confronts artists, too, and since I started my foray into mixed media, I’ve gotten hooked on art house, an online community where artists share their work and participate in group projects. If you need a little inspirational shove–it’s the perfect place.

When I need a break from all that art-making and storytelling, I need a snack. That’s where Food 52 comes in. Started by famed foodies Amanda Hesser and Merrill Stubbs, it’s a great place to find fellow foodies, and contribute your recipes to their weekly contests (winners will be in the Food52 cookbook!).  This week, the finalists for the recipe contest are even sisters! Check it out.

Usually, especially on a snow day, my internet sojourn is interrupted, countless times, by my sweet, attention-grabbing offspring. If they commandeer the computer, our first stop is usually Poisson Rouge, my absolute favorite play site for little kids. The design’s beautiful, and I love their sweet multimedia games. And when I start to go nuts from having my body and my mind overtaken by my sweethearts, I know I can find solace at Babble, my favorite online parenting site. It’s got just the right mix of sound advice, irreverence, and a dash of stupid celebrity gossip to ease my weary mom brain. It takes a village, right? It’s just that some days, my village is virtual.

How about you? Do you have digital destinations you want to share with the sisters? Let us know!

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