I F THERE IS a seasonal cycle between the Roach sisters, it begins each year in winter when I ask which seeds to order. In early spring it’s whether I can yet prune my apple trees. Following a purely horticultural calendar, I know that midsummer brings a need to know the absolute drop-dead date for pruning lilacs; a call in autumn is all about when to harvest pumpkins.
I don’t stick to a purely horticultural calendar, of course, when there is so much more to ask of my older sister, Margaret. With the same seasonal regularity, at 4 PM the day before Christmas, the question is how to make the buttermilk in which to marinate the turkey. (Of course she denies that she makes buttermilk, but don’t let’s get started on that.)
The context for the next day’s call will be cranberry sauce and cranberry ice. The subtext, too, remains the same. Writing down none of the answers, frequently calling with pruning shears or whisk already in hand, I perform the task right then, the whole ritual of call-and-response identifying and re-identifying me, securing my place as younger sister. She knows it, I know it, and no one says a word about it. It’s not about doing as I’m told, though. It’s just about doing. Doing is what I do best.
She thinks and plans, executes, re-plans and makes note of it all, whether the topic is the art and science of horticulture, the physics of cooking, or the rational use of time. She looks and considers. I prefer to plunge.
No related posts.
First time here? Here's the idea: 
{ 6 comments… read them below or add one }
Oh, I love this! Could any two sisters have been more different or have had such altered perceptions of our childhood than Diane and I??? I have passed this on to my daughters, Jillian and Abigail whose relationship has always reminded me of the Roach girls…
Welcome, Priscilla. We are delighted to have you here. Please read around the site and tell us what you’re thinking, sister. We’d love to know.
How thrilled am I about this new endeavor of yours? Well, as the youngsters say, I am TOTES thrilled. Nice to find you and Margaret well!
Kerry
Hello to Priscilla, our next-door growing-up neighbor. Here we all are together again.
Now tell everybody, since you were there, watching: My version, not Marion’s, is the correct one, right? (Ha!)
Marion, as far as seeds go, I am all about weird and wacky gourds for the coming year…and don’t go after your apples until the “January thaws” or even February. Of course you already knew all that, and didn’t really even need to ask.
My sister Linda and I are even older than Marion and Margaret. I envy your respected differences coinciding with the notion of “sisterdom.” My most recurring experience of my sister is heard in a recent response jumping quickly out of my mouth when asked “do you have a sister?” “In concept” I responded! I dream of a sister relationship that complements, expands; mostly I experience a sister relationship that rebounds, like bumper cars at summer fairs. Maybe writing will find another “us.”
Welcome, Nancy. Margaret and I will explore those bumper cars in our blog. We’ve got them too. And every week I will post a memoir prompt to help you and every other writing sister out there to get it on the page. Share what you can with us. Here at the Sister Project we have a shared sense of success. And – and this is important – no one can steal your story, after all. It’s yours. Writing to us will get you writing. Treat this like a weekly deadline.
Do tell.