Marion Roach Smith’s alternate sisterly reality, with Margaret Roach.
WHO CROSSED YOUR PATH FIRST on New Year’s Day? If it was a redhead, you may need to fasten your seat belt for a bumpy 2010, since at least one beginning-of-the-year tradition holds that the person first crossing your threshold in the new year decides the luck you’ll have for the next 365 days. [click to continue…]
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I TOLD THEM, AND I TOLD THEM, and I told them again. And still the doctors did not listen. I awakened during procedures; worse, I never fell asleep. Then, finally, science backed me up and I had something to show my doctors before they brushed away my claims of both needing more anesthesia and feeling more pain than most people. Turns out that I am one of a rare breed of mutants who does. Are you? [click to continue…]
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I THOUGHT THIS WAS ME. So did Margaret. Despite the fact that it’s a boy, it looks exactly as I did at the age that I began my happy days at P.S. 94 in Little Neck, Queens. And the attitude. Yup. Same. I actually stopped and stared at it, wondering how that could be. Has this happened to you on the Internet, running across something deeply, weirdly familiar? It just happened to me.
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Me, at about the age of those precious school-bus years w/Andy Hattenrash.
WHEN WE LEFT OUR HEROINES, one was standing in our parents’ bedroom, holding a photo in her 9-year-old hand. She just wanted ice cream and, as a result of that hunger, came away with a whole lot more than she was after. It would take her little sister—me—14 years to come to the same conclusion that Margaret did in that instant: that our mother was having an affair. [click to continue…]
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Today is International Women’s Day, honoring the economic, political and social achievements of women throughout history. IWD has its roots in the early 20th century demonstrations of women working in textile and garment factories, and has evolved into a global celebration and official holiday in dozens of countries world-wide. All of us at TSP are suggesting honorees (you’ll find Paige‘s and Anastasia‘s picks elsewhere on this site); won’t you share yours?
On International Women’s Day, I am honoring the following redheaded women:
1. Boudicca, Celtic warrior, the first Queen of England, who rather than let the Romans conquer London, burned it to the ground (C.E. 60s). Riding into battle on her chariot, wearing nothing but her long red hair, she made one hell of a statement. There is a fabulous monument to her right next to Big Ben (above), smack against the Thames. [click to continue…]
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Maybe my red hair made me search for our genetic and genealogical history.
O NE HUNDRED MILLION Americans are tracing their roots, and while genealogy is a fast-growing American pursuit, many people begin their search with little more than an old photograph and a shred of a family tale. That’s all I had, and as we learned from the recent mystery of the twins here on TSP, much can be learned from very little. While researching a book on redheads a few years ago, for instance, I tried to trace my own hair color. [click to continue…]
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JUDAS WAS A REDHEAD. And that was pretty much that for any hope of redheaded men ever being considered icons of attractiveness, trustworthiness or temperance. Red-haired women, by comparison, fare far better, forming a sisterhood whose stereotypes are far more flattering, though no less ancient. [click to continue…]
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Edith Wharton
H APPY BIRTHDAY, EDITH WHARTON. Born January 24, 1862, Edith Wharton was the kind of woman The Sister Project adores. Writing more than 40 books in 40 years, she was a fine author of both fiction and non-fiction, including authoritative books on the topics of architecture, gardens, interior design, and travel. The first woman to be awarded the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, she also received an honorary Doctorate of Letters from Yale University, as well as full membership in the American Academy of Arts and Letters. Oh yes, and she was a redhead, and as you may have read, some of us at TSP really love that. [click to continue…]
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I DON’T KNOW MUCH about geometry, but Margaret sees the metaphor of math in life. She was much quicker than I in seeing how sisterhoods are sets and subsets, as well as how varying pods of women gracefully flow into our lives and then ebb away when a shared goal is reached. She is also more patient. Me, I’m always in a rock fight with someone—however metaphorical—and the only math I seem to do is keeping score of who did what to whom. I’m unwilling to see things in the tidy terms of pie, flow and bar charts, but it’s unclear if I come by my outlook via nature or nurture since I am a redhead. Which, Margaret points out, is a sisterhood of its own: the Sisterhood of Red Hair. [click to continue…]
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BIKING WITH MOM: Nowhere is our story more two-sided than on the topic of our mother.
First time here? Here's the idea: The Sister Project 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 on our homepage 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: Learn more about TSP, and how to find your way around. And oh—a giant, sisterly welcome.
