WHEN I SAY potato, you know what you say, right? Hmmm. Maybe you don’t.
At “She Said/She Said” we explore that old, “You say potato, and I say poe-tah-toe” thing that sisters do—that not quite seeing the same experience in the very same way.
The idea of this blog came from a class I teach in memoir. Called Writing What You Know, the once-a-week course has run for 10 years, to date attracting 500 students, and recently the subject of an article in the Albany Times Union. Pretty much every single week someone has related what they felt when after reading a heartfelt personal essay to a family member, that family member responded, “That’s not what happened,” or some version on that theme. Just this week a man introduced himself, saying, “My sister says I write stories and that she tells the truth.”
I love that. And while that’s fascinating, what I’ve realized over the years is that this dual reality thing keeps a lot of people from telling their tales; the fact that there is another version of the very same family experience makes some people think that their version is not the truth, and therefore not worth telling.
Sound familiar?
Have you ever wanted to write about your family? Of course you have. But perhaps when you think about it, you clean your kitchen instead. Welcome to writing. It’s all about letting grime sink deep into your linoleum while you do some real work on the computer.
So, since you can’t all come to my class, amid the other posts I’ll make, I’ll come to you each week with a prodding memoir suggestion that every sister can ponder.
Here’s our first:
It’s the season, as they say, so let’s try something seasonal. I’m calling it “Side Dish,” though I’m not talking turkey. I’m talking the kind of dish you do when you tell tales. The Sister Project has a lovely spot for you to talk and post about food, over at Paige Smith Orloff’s blog “Hey, Little Sister,” but here, let’s all write just a few sentences on our sisters at the holidays.
Does she insist on her relish? Burn the turkey? Or worse, do everything perfectly?
Not motivated yet? How about the topic of gifts and what they are. What gifts from your sister have been a recognition of who you both are?
Gifts can be just that—for better or for worse. Usually it’s another purple sweater or cellophaned supermarket flowers, inspiring a silent repetition of the mantra that it’s the thought that counts, the thought that counts. Long ago, I began buying myself a yearly present, sure that a small indulgence is good preventive medicine, a fine hedge against any resentment of either being forgotten or worse, misunderstood. We want to be understood
Have you ever fully expressed in a gift just what it is that you understand about your sister? Has she, to you?
Oh, I can hear the typing from here.
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First time here? Here's the idea: 
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. 
As the suffix of its name suggests, 
{ 49 comments… read them below or add one }
Marvelous. Beware my little sister, (whom I love dearly) I’ve got a story to tell.
Welcome, Paul. It’s a joy to have you here. Send your sister over to The Sister Project and let us hear her side of the story after you tell us yours. We’d love it.
Congratulations, Marion and Margaret, on your beautiful website! I’m challenged, and inspired to write about my sisterhood, but also, afraid! Why am I afraid? I have to explore the answer, and appreciate the opportunity to share it as part of my memoir.
Welcome, Miriam. As our father – a writer – used to say, you always bring a little fear to something you respect. So bring on the fear without letting it get in your way. Think of the fear as side rails, and not as a block; as something that keeps you from writing too much or off topic. And then tell it, sister. Tell us two or three small details about something your sister – blood or otherwise – gave you as a gift. We’re here to hear it.
Congratulations, Roach Sisters, on this web site celebrating sisterhood. You nailed it when you said that memories around your mother can be the most different. So can food memories. My sister recently emailed me something about our mother cooking Spam. Spam? My mother never cooked Spam! I remember her making fun of Spam. But my sister’s mother, apparently, cooked Spam as my mother was mocking it in the next room. Holidays? I don’t dare ask lest I hear my sister’s mother served scrapple or cheese from a can. My sister can write her own memoir.
My friend Miriam challenges me to think…to write…and now…this website…about sisters.. Is my sister the one who was born of my mother? Or maybe my friend Miriam who understands me better than most? I will think…and try to write….and I thank you for making this something I must do!
Sisterhood…. I believe it is on many levels. I have a birth sister who never challenges me but is always a loving presence in my life. I have many sister-friends who love me…and continue to challenge me to become. I will ponder this difference….and I will try tomorrow to write more. Tonight I am tired.
Welcome, Elizabeth. One casserole plus two sisters equals three stories. I call it “writing math,” and Spam has probably spawned more divergent tales than any other American food product. Talk about a fork in the road. I once used a Spam recipe to explain the human genome on NPR’s All Things Considered. Anyone else got a Spam story? I eat ‘em up. My sister? She’s a vegetarian.
Welcome, Bobbi. The question of the hour – or a lifetime – isn’t it? Is my sister the one who was born of my mother? Such a good topic for a personal essay: small, precise in its question. The perfect assignment.
Congrats, Roach ladies! Margaret’s a soul sister of sorts, and I look forward, Marion, to learning from your sage assignments. Me? I have three sisters by blood and nine friends I’ve known almost as long that are sisters, too. Among the “real” ones, two of us were born of our mother, two of us were more of our father and those differences and associations beget story after story–no Spam involved, but maybe some Crisco and a good bit of rivalry. I’ll try and get brave enough to share a spoonful or two.
Hi, Deb. What do we get when we combine “sage,” “Spam,” and “Crisco,” I wonder? Not a recipe we’d find on your fabulous blog or in your perfect magazine, Everyday Food. I can’t thank you enough for the Indian-spiced braised chicken (April, 2007), and the glazed chocolate cake (date submerged under chocolate smudge; had to photocopy before the page wore out, and now that copy is nearly edible), both of which I emailed to my cooking-sister, a dear friend in Maine. Cooking binds us. But you know that. Welcome. And tell us some sister cooking rivalries of the crossed-skewers variety. We’d love that.
Thinking of gifts reminded me that I’ve not seen sisters-in-law counted among the sisters. The best Christmas presents when I was a child were chosen by the brothers’ wives: charm bracelets, cosmetics, bermuda shorts with matching knee socks, and exotic gifts from foreign countries that came in the mail from the military families.
The earliest birthday present I remember, from the sister we called Tanky, was a wind-up doll that crawled. Perfect!
Marion – your NPR piece is probably the most creative use of Spam ever!
I’ve thought about SPAM more in the past two weeks (not counting the junk in my inbox) than I have in the past 30 years! I was so jealous of a friend from 2nd grade because she lived over her grandmother’s store and I was convinced she could go downstairs and get candy (Fizzies! Peppermint Patties!) whenever she wanted. BUT they ate Spam. Fortunately, dinner guests did not have to eat it. I also did not have to eat their other frequent entree – tongue.
I wonder if I remember food I disliked more than I liked…
I was living in Manhattan, trying to be pretty chic, sophisticated. Working for the Carl Fisher Music Publishing Co. It was January and it was cold – that kind of cold that it gets in New York. I had bought my first coat by myself, I picked it out because it was a great color for me and a lovely A-line shape but I didnt realize how thin it was. Really a spring coat, not winter. I was cold and depressed, having NO friends and it was my birthday. I was pretending that every thing was just ‘fine’ and it wasn’t working.
I took myself to Hickson’s, a fancy drug store on Fifth Avenue and had a chocolate soda sitting at the counter because I was self conscious about sitting by myself at a table for 2 or more. It was pretty dreary. I pretended to enjoy the soda. and It didnt work.
I took the bus downtown to my room on 13th street. Feeling sad and dejected on my birthday – alone. Poor little girl. When I got into the lobby of the Evangeline Hotel for Women and opened my mailbox – oh there! a present! from my sister! I rushed upstairs to open it and found a lovely little black suede pocketbook and a pair of black suede gloves! Even today 60 years later, I cry at the sweetness of my perfect sister remembering my birthday and doing something about it!
A myriad of feelings rose like foam to the top of me and all I could do was cry and feel even more sorry for my lonely state.
There’s more to this story than I realized but now, I will go to bed and think about it. The end.
Hi, again, Nell Jean. Sisters-in-law are sisters, too. Absolutely. Here at TSP we think of sisterhood in the broadest possible sense, but are delighted for the reminder. Another reminder is embedded in your comment, a great device for writers: use detail. That you had a sister called Tanky is a great detail; your precise list of gifts from sisters-in-law is another. Life is lived in the small moments, and in memoir it’s reading detail that makes the story universal. Thank you.
Hey, Elizabeth. I not only think that we remember food we disliked more than what we liked, but I also remember what foods my sister ate as a child that I found repulsive. I can make a list of foods that divided us then – and now. My memoir students always ask me how to retrieve memory. This is a great exercise for precisely that.
Hi, Nina: Welcome to The Sister Project. Ah, a gift story. Thank you. It’s a gift to us all. Just lovely.
My sister an I have always travelled out of step with each other. Our differences are so pronounced that neither her friends nor mine can understand how we’re related. She doesn’t keep up with politics, isn’t interested in intellectual pursuits, hates shopping, isn’t ambitious or competitive, and likes country music. I am her polar opposite. She has kids and the patience to be a good mother. I have neither. Her taste tends towards early american, mine towards modern minimalism. She is usually described as sweet. No one has ever called me that.
As children we were flogged with each other’s good qualities, our little noses rubbed in the fact that one of us would never be full of sunshine and the other would never be smart. It became a self-fulfilling prophesy. Worse, until we were adults we harbored deep resentments against each other, jealous of the praise that was heaped on the other for a quality we knew we’d never have.
It was only after we were grown and moved away, when she was married and pregnant with her first child, that my sister and I became friends. We compared notes and we commiserated and we slowly entered each other’s lives.
Five years ago, my grandmother died and all of the grandchildren, including my sister and I, were asked to speak at the funeral. My sister, worried that her speech wouldn’t be as articulate or smart as the ones by me or her cousins, and she asked me to review hers and help make it better. I was prepared to see something trite and awkward. But here’s the thing, all this time, my mother had been wrong. My sister is smart. What she wrote was eloquent and insightful and full of her own warmth and simple truth.
It’s been my goal, since then, to make her see what I saw and to let her know that she is smart. Maybe she can find a way to show me that I’m sweet.
Hi Marion and Margaret, What an uplifting website, I loved reading all of it. I am one of 4 sisters and it came to me today that at different times in my life, each one of them was my “favorite” sister. Now that I’m older, I just treasure the times when we are all together, laughing and reminiscing.This will be happening on Saturday when we take our mother out for a day in NYC for her birthday.The last time we all got together was a year ago. This is gonna hafta change.
Welcome, Linda: Your version of sisterhood is fascinating, particularly the way you report on yourself from your sister’s perspective. Memoir, a medium that allows for a 360 degree review, does not require it, though when the 360 device is deployed look how compelling even a short tale becomes. Yours is a gorgeous use of the device. Please keep coming back. I’ve got a new memoir prompt coming soon.
Welcome, Ann: “Gonna hafta change” could be the t-shirt motto/tattoo/brand of sisters. There is no better way to unearth how and what to change than to write. We look forward to hearing the next installment, after Saturday.
Marion -
I laughed out loud when you said you remember what foods your sister ate as a child that you found repulsive. I won’t bore everyone with the details, but I once secreted the only English-language menu on a cruise ship in the Black Sea, where my family was stuck eating whatever was put in front of us, just so I could wait for my sister to put a fork in her mouth and I could slyly deliver the line “So, how do calve’s brains taste?” I was 7.
No one but me was pleased with my trick, but it was worth it at the time.
Linda –
That is a lovely story. I think it can take a lifetime to figure out that there is more to us than the molds our parents poured us into.
Signed –
the former “athletic one” but still “the tall one”
Elizabeth: the calves brains comment made me actually bump my nose on my computer screen, I laughed so hard. Nice. Very Adams Family, very droll, very sisterly, very pleasing to us here.
And oh, yes, those physical identifiers. With Margaret and me it’s hair color. Always has been.
Dear Marion, Congrats on another great project! If a poem can fit your format, here’s one on sisterhood and things family share, or don’t. loveandgoodwishes, Mary
Articulations
by Mary Armao McCarthy
My mother stands by my suitcase,
“Do you want to take home an artichoke?”
I surprise myself by considering
airline security and carry-on options.
Mom’s refrigerator brims with
a half-dozen robust offerings.
Florida’s finest. Plump, leafy expectations.
It’s second nature
for Mom to mix the filling,
to carefully tend each leaf.
I guess I should try.
Offer the gentle steam bath.
Cherish the slide of taste.
Years back, I called my car the foodmobile
when I visited one of my sisters
and Mom loaded in favorites for them.
Both sisters moved from A to B.
Albany to Buffalo. Albany to Boston.
And slowly our conversations stammered
like the dotted lines on the roads that link us
while I long for the tender glide of artichoke.
###
Marion
I have always been in awe of your eloquence . Thank you for giving me and others a place to read your thoughts and work. Writing is one of my biggest phobias and I only get through most of what I need to do with really good editors like our friend Lisa. I will try to do your assignments as I have learned the only way to get over my fear of writing is to write.
Alex the younger sister who looks nothing like her older sister.
Thanks for this site, sisters. I belong to a few circle of sister-friends including the ladies of the lake, breakfast club, and the Bennett sisters. Sisters all.
For my sister, Barbara, I just bought a box of ribbon candy because she likes it (I don’t) and her kids think it is weird.
Welcome, Mary McC: Ah, memoir. It can come in the form of screenplay, song, performance art and, of course poetry. Thank you. Please keep visiting and adding to the conversation.
Hi, Alexandra: It’s a delight to have you here and to know that you will be writing along with us. Fear is a form of respect. So, let’s get you on the page, shall we? You’ll feel better. I’m eager to hear from another younger sister who looks nothing like her older sister. Write on, sister!
And Ellie. What a gift. Welcome. Yes, ribbon candy. You’ve got it – it’s the details, the small moments and small decisions that characterize us on the page. We look forward to hearing more of your details. Thank you.
The best gift my sister can give me is a generous slice of her wonderful fruit pie (any fruit will do; it’s always sublime). I only get to enjoy it on those rare occasions when one of us crosses the continent to visit the other. Pie is my favorite dessert in all the world, and without question what I’d want for my last meal. Yet I never mastered the art of the crust, although our mother did her best to school us both in the family technique, which she had learned at her own mother’s side.
So, why not? I sensed that in our family, pie had to do with competition. A friend once whispered to me, with a conspiratorial look, “Don’t tell your mother I said this, but your sister’s pies are better than hers.” A knight has his shield, a Maynard woman her rolling pin. Except this Maynard woman.
It’s not as if I don’t care about the pleasures of the table. I’ve made my own fettucine with one of those devices that Italian nonnas use; I’ve cut my own French fries and left them to soak all day (a peccadillo of the fussiest cooks). But for me, NOT baking pie has to do with following my own path instead of someone else’s. Besides, I can always dream about my sister’s pies. If I baked my own, hers wouldn’t be as special.
‘Of two sisters one is always the watcher, one the dancer.’
—Louise Glück
I love this quote! I have two sisters, one my “Irish twin”, the other 11 years my junior (there are four brothers inbetween). When I look back I can see that there are times, decades even, where it seems one dances and the other watches. One thing’s for sure, we all hear very different drummers!
I have sent them the link and hope they feel called to tell their side of the story.
Great site!
Rachel
Hi, Rona: Oh, sister, you are psychic. Did you see Paige Orloff’s blog post about cross continental brisket? Please do, here.
Wonderful pie story. Food unites us and divides us and unites us again, doesn’t it? And never more so than in this time of the holidays, I think. My sister, a vegetarian, shoves me aside at the holidays, to make the gravy she will not eat – and I would not be happy if she didn’t. Please keep visiting.
Welcome, Rachel: How lovely to have you here. The different drummers that sisters hear is a common and fascinating theme. We hope your sisters come here and speak up. We’d love to meet them. Thanks so much for coming by. Please come back and work that musical metaphor some more.
Marion,
Great project! I love reading all that you write. I’ve thought many times about writing my memoir but have never thought about writing with my sisters in mind. As the youngest of four girls (and I’m already 60), you have lit a spark within me that leaves me a bit overwhelmed yet cautiously excited to look at our relationships. I’m going to have to “chew” on this for awhile.
Welcome, Judy: What a joy to find you here. That we have lit a spark within you delights me. Everyone has as story to tell. I believe that and that no one should try it alone: a little guidance, some friendly support, a sense of shared success all make writing better for us all. Welcome. Come back and use the memoir prompts. A new one is coming soon.
From the Bumper Car Chronicles:
Well, I keep reaching to feel the “sameness” or at least “a connection” as I speak with my older sister once again: that weekend call, as we live 1300 miles apart. Today she “reported” on the new tv they had bought and on the snow yesterday; of friends with illnesses and teething grandchildren. Interesting; good to hear her voice. And, the teether, he is my grandnephew so of course I am listening there. But…no sameness; no connection comes through the phone line once again. So, I make my way, alone in my head, and, when I can, excited by the “other” sisters I have found in a younger neighbor, a not for profit colleague board member, a long term geographically far away woman from an 80’s Women’s Group, and I’ll try again, I’ll listen to hear it in the next call–maybe next weekend. It’s got to be there, somewhere. Maybe when she receives my surprise gift, our dad’s college transcript and athletic record from Boston University, Class of ‘30, which I tracked down to share with my two nephews–her sons–one with the teether and the other, also with a toddler, this one named Jack, after our dad. Connections. Not like painting between the lines; more like French impressionism.
“The Bumper Car Chronicles” is a perfect name for a sister memoir. In nonfiction the essential question we always ask – both to drive the story forward, as well as to keep it small – is, “What is this about?” I think you’ve got a great theme here. Next, try a list. For help with that, please see my next memoir prompt, posted today. http://thesisterproject.com/roach/the-list-that-helps-with-loss/#more-178
here’s an old poem of mine, more autumn than winter:
My mother always said
her daughters were gypsies.
Nested nets of dark hair trailing.
Their laughter like young witches –
intermingling, interweaving.
The touch of the Tarot?
We knew our card could
never be depicted.
Beyond pagan,
our web stretched to hold us.
More mirror than mystery,
my sister.
Welcome, Joely: You’ve caused quite the remarkable response on the memoir post this week. http://thesisterproject.com/roach/the-list-that-helps-with-loss/#more-178
Thank you for this. It’s lovely. Please keep visiting.
My big sister’s gifts were always opening new worlds for me. I still remember getting the Catcher in the Rye from her in the 7th grade and getting my first makeup and a Springsteen album from her in the 8th grade. She was in college and seemed so grown up!
Hi, Elizabeth. Oh, yes! I now remember the white, plastic upholstery-covered Revlon nail kit my sister gave me, but only because you provoked that memory with yours of the make-up kit. Such a great reminder. Thanks.
I was raised amoung 4 sisters and 1 brother. We are now between the ages of 58 and 52 and our Mother is only 75! The house we were raised in was very small and very crowded! One thing about a small house and that many kids, you always knew where everyone was and what they were doing! Recently my sister and I (along with one of my daughters) complied all our recipes through the years and had a cookbook printed called “Two Sisters Plus One”. We gave around 100 of them out as Christmas presents and are still having requests for more! This project has been a joy and has made us take the time to remember the good times we had growing up in a large family. I’ve enjoyed reading your page. Thanks for sharing it!
Hi, Kelly. Welcome. Make sure to share this with Paige, http://thesisterproject.com/orloff, our blogger who writes about food. This is marvelous, and I’m so glad you got those recipes on the page. Please come back and share some of them with us.
My sister is five years older than I am – I’m 60, so that makes her (ha ha) 65!! I still am amazed at those numbers. I’m REALLY 60??? We were not that close when we were young. As a matter of fact, we didn’t become really close until I was in my thirties. But she has always been there for me. When I was a teen in revolt, hers was the house I went to when I skipped school. And it was me who tried to teach her to smoke. When we were real little and spent the night at our grandmother’s, we would lie in bed and draw pictures on each others back and we had to guess what it was. And we would peel each other’s sunburned skin – the one who got the biggest piece of skin was the winner! Our lives have been total opposites, although we have each had three long-term relationships in common. We are several states away, she in Pennsylvia, me in Florida, but time and I think distance have made our relationship closer and closer over the years. She has two sons and grandchildren here in Florida, and she makes time to come over to the west coast to see me, usually for just a day. She is to me the “historian” of our family because she can remember further back than I can, and when she comes I always have a question about one of our long departed relatives. One day I will get up to her neck of the woods . . . one day.
Welcome, Kathryn. This is wonderful. Such rich territory, as family–specifically, sisters–can be. That one sister is designated family historian is something I just wrote about in our new genealogy string. http://thesisterproject.com/roach/category/genealogy/
Of these marvelous scenes you offer us, my favorite is the peeling the sunburned skin–and that it was a contest. So very sisterly, that detail. Ah, those details. I talk a great deal about those in the writing memoir posts here on TSP, http://thesisterproject.com/roach/category/by-marion/on-writing-memoir/ but here, you’ve taught me a new one: writing about a contest, that competition between sisters, without using the word. Lovely.
Please come back soon.
Hi! Is there a length requirement to submit? It would be a privilege to have Marion as a coach in this venue!
Hi, Miriam: As you can see, a small nugget works best. That way everyone will read it. Whaddayagot, sister? Tell us your tale.
Well, this isn’t a small nugget, but here goes:
The Dirty Trick
“What a dirty trick to play on Miriam!”
Mother was pregnant, but so were those words, uttered by my father when I was three years old. It might have been just an odd thing to say in a lifetime of saying odd things. It seemed to mean more than the anxiety of added responsibility felt by many fathers. We knew it was unusual, but he was unusual, his mental illness was to come the fore a short four years later, destroying any credibility he had for anything he said for the rest of his life.
I’m beginning to wonder what it would have been like if I was the second daughter who was coming to divide the first born’s parental love and attention. How would I feel growing up knowing that my father was less than happy about my existence? I’d probably resent it like hell and feel more than a little unloved. Perhaps the role of “unwanted” daughter was at play during the time when my relationship with my sister verged on calamity.
My husband had been dead for five years and our mother was dying. Although I had a good job and fine friends in Virginia, I wanted to return home. My oldest son already had been living with his grandmother when she had her heart attack, sending her to the hospital and nursing home for the rest of her life. For all the years previous, my sister and her husband had attended my mother’s needs. Lately, I had been summoned home twice and made emergency plane trips because of her critical health. It was time to move back and share some of the burden, so I quit my job and called my sister, thinking she’d be glad.
She wasn’t. The extent of her opposition to the move astounded me. She angrily told me that they had had the responsibility and that it had been very hard, but still she didn’t want me to come back. In the same conversation, she told me she was jealous of my freedom! Yes, I had freedom because I didn’t have a husband. Why be jealous of that? I should have been jealous of her- her live husband and prosperous life. Thinking about it now, maybe her attitude reflected was the monstrous “dirty trick” remark retold so many times in our family.
Was it a dirty trick on a beloved first child? Would I be aware that things would change when I would no longer be the sole beneficiary of the attention from my family? I never sensed a change, a dividing up of loyalties that were undeniable, only the awareness of a little sister who was always there. We shared a bedroom and parallel griefs as the tensions mounted in the family. Having a wife and two daughters was strain enough, but Dad had to cope with his mother living with us too when we moved into a new house and mother took over. He didn’t say it was a dirty trick when mother was expecting for a third time. He must have worried that the bedrooms were full. How did he feel when mother told him baby would take up residence in their bedroom for years? He simply broke down.
The real “break down” came as named: a “nervous breakdown.” After he walked the street in his pajamas declaring that he was Jesus, he was taken away to the mental ward. Soon after, mother delivered another child in the maternity hospital, this time a baby boy. I became a sister again twice. Did I feel usurped in some way? I suspect no more than any other seven year-old. The baby was a curiosity for me. Photos show me tipping my head in the direction of the whining and tears from both my sister and baby brother, a rather worried expression on my face. I became the “good one.” They would cry and complain; I wished they wouldn’t. Was that the “dirty trick?”
That remark became a part of the family lore among the other odd things he used to say and do. He had a store of prankster sayings that might not be associated with the delusions of grandeur that he sometimes displayed. Now we sit around at family gatherings and bore our in-laws with stories of how he captured a skunk in the backyard and tried to drown it in the pool and ended up transporting it away in the trunk of the car. Of how he’d take my nephew to the OTB, starting his lifelong gambling skills. But most of all, we love the silly things he used to tell us. On vegetables: “Eat your carrots, they’ll put hair on your chest.” Or on staying indoors: “Go on outside and blow the stink off you.” On leftovers: “Save it for breakfast.”
I did return and was there to face my sibling’s resentment of my presence in mother’s house, even though I was paying all of the taxes house expenses. Soon after, my sister and brother decided to sell the house, forcing me into an apartment until I could sell my house in Virginia. I tasted resentment on that moving day when my sister and her husband, along with my brother and his wife, appeared before the moving van that day to make sure I didn’t take something with me that I shouldn’t. Then, maybe, I felt the “dirty trick” was on me.
My sister is my breath. We too are very different and, six years apart, grew up with very different roles and expectations. Our mother died when I was 20, she 14, and it was a decade before we began to learn the language to deal with the pain of her death and all that surrounded it. But although she was always the “baby” and I the too responsible elder, we look through amazingly similar lenses, and have such similar insights and understanding into the dynamics of our family and that awful time. Thirty-five years later, I cannot imagine not having her as my touchstone.
Hi, Betty Marton. And welcome. Oh, I love that: “My sister is my breath.” Oh my, that’s wonderful, gorgeous and apt. Thank you. Yes, learning the language. Such a kernel, such a moment. You write so beautifully. Thank you. I learn so much in a comment like yours. Please keep visiting.
Thank you, Marion. Your words are encouraging, since I’ve struggled for years to capture some of what that time was all about. I guess I’ll keep trying!
Thank you! I’m going to go through these various posts and do some much needed writing! http://www.vegasaliens.com/wyndsong/2009/07/28/sister-sister-writing-prompt/ Here’s my first post based on the questions you asked here. Thank you again for giving me this outlet!
Hi, Betty. So glad you find the words encouraging. I hope you are continuing to try to put down the words you feel. Please come back soon.
Hi, Christine: You’re welcome. Thanks for giving me something to read. I enjoyed it, and was particularly taken by the idea of your sister getting your age wrong. That is fascinating, of course. That projection onto another sibling those things we remember them as, or for, those ages we wish they still were, which to us, the recipient of a gift, can be so galling. You captured that beautifully. Keep going. I applaud you for your work.
Way to go, Marion! I have no sisters but soul sisters and they certainly deserve a story. Thanks.
Hi Anne. And welcome to TSP, where all manners of sisters are welcome. We are delighted to read you here, and hope you’ll be a regular visitor. Write on.