The Job of Being Sisters
The job of being sisters
Do you ever look at people in the grocery store and wish you had their hair or their long legs? Well, I do and then I think—gee, what if they have cancer or something I DON”T want? Like poof, that’s really going to happen to me.
But I’m starting to think that I am so much (maybe too much) like several someone else’s: my brothers and sisters, those people who share my life experiences, genes, personal views, everything. Any mom, after awhile, starts to wonder if some of the kids did come from the mailman, the milkman and that salesman she talked to in ’72 encyclopedias. How could child number one and child number six even be related? In our society, individuality is so important. With millions of people on the earth, were frantically searching for any way we can say, “Hey, I’M not just another raindrop.”
Bur we really are so much alike, particularly in the case of brothers and sisters.
What made me start thinking about this was a poem about sisters by the German poet Rilk. Ordinarily, I do not read poetry that doesn’t rhyme and isn’t easily memorized, but I have friends who do it for me and tell me about what they’ve read. A mixed blessing.
In his poem Rilk says that sisters really are just the same person walking together with different gaits.
My friend, Lida, a tall, buxom, assertive college student, is considered “the bossy one” in her family. She and her Russian family are a group of free spirits, devoted capitalist completely unable to make a sandwich without help. Her sister, Alana, and mom, Anna, are “the pretty ones”. Lida is also “the smart one” and Alana “the artistic one”. This goes on so-on-and-so-on down the list of adjectives until the personality jobs are assigned.
If Alana is “the pretty one,” is Lida “the ugly one,” “the pleasant-to-look-at-but-really-not-at-all-that-attractive one”? Is she “the incompetent one”?
In their family, this has often been the case. Once a label has been assigned, they may had great difficulty stepping outside those descriptions. Especially during the man difficulties face moving to a new country, learning a new language and finding housing. Lida’s ability to lead and her facility for language have established her as “the boss” and the rest of the family, while admiring her and depending on her, often resent her position. She is often the ugly villain to her pretty mom and sister.
In reality, from an outside view, everyone seems assertive, very pretty and artistic. They really share more family likenesses than differences.
Can you say to yourself, “Wow, I’m just like my sister Mary? My brother Joe”? In some families, those words can be hard to say. I can even be hard when Joe or Mary is “The successful one” and you’re “the loser”. It kind of turns your world upside down to change those descriptions even when they’re flattering.
Many of us here in Springville like to think we’re all brothers and sisters in one big generally happy family—if our ward doesn’t meet too early and the bishop is smiling when we see him. And, as outsiders like to point out, we all pretty much look alike with our blue jean-ed baggy t-shirted bodies driving around in our beaten-up family sized vee-hikles. So what. There could be worse families to belong to and I’m kind of proud of mine.
Lets let the job descriptions fall where they may. My trash guy comes on Wednesday—maybe I’ll give him my out-of-date list of differences with the used kitty litter, and start enjoying how much we’re alike.
Do you ever look at people in the grocery store and wish you had their hair or their long legs? Well, I do and then I think—gee, what if they have cancer or something I DON”T want? Like poof, that’s really going to happen to me.
But I’m starting to think that I am so much (maybe too much) like several someone else’s: my brothers and sisters, those people who share my life experiences, genes, personal views, everything. Any mom, after awhile, starts to wonder if some of the kids did come from the mailman, the milkman and that salesman she talked to in ’72 encyclopedias. How could child number one and child number six even be related? In our society, individuality is so important. With millions of people on the earth, were frantically searching for any way we can say, “Hey, I’M not just another raindrop.”
Bur we really are so much alike, particularly in the case of brothers and sisters.
What made me start thinking about this was a poem about sisters by the German poet Rilk. Ordinarily, I do not read poetry that doesn’t rhyme and isn’t easily memorized, but I have friends who do it for me and tell me about what they’ve read. A mixed blessing.
In his poem Rilk says that sisters really are just the same person walking together with different gaits.
My friend, Lida, a tall, buxom, assertive college student, is considered “the bossy one” in her family. She and her Russian family are a group of free spirits, devoted capitalist completely unable to make a sandwich without help. Her sister, Alana, and mom, Anna, are “the pretty ones”. Lida is also “the smart one” and Alana “the artistic one”. This goes on so-on-and-so-on down the list of adjectives until the personality jobs are assigned.
If Alana is “the pretty one,” is Lida “the ugly one,” “the pleasant-to-look-at-but-really-not-at-all-that-attractive one”? Is she “the incompetent one”?
In their family, this has often been the case. Once a label has been assigned, they may had great difficulty stepping outside those descriptions. Especially during the man difficulties face moving to a new country, learning a new language and finding housing. Lida’s ability to lead and her facility for language have established her as “the boss” and the rest of the family, while admiring her and depending on her, often resent her position. She is often the ugly villain to her pretty mom and sister.
In reality, from an outside view, everyone seems assertive, very pretty and artistic. They really share more family likenesses than differences.
Can you say to yourself, “Wow, I’m just like my sister Mary? My brother Joe”? In some families, those words can be hard to say. I can even be hard when Joe or Mary is “The successful one” and you’re “the loser”. It kind of turns your world upside down to change those descriptions even when they’re flattering.
Many of us here in Springville like to think we’re all brothers and sisters in one big generally happy family—if our ward doesn’t meet too early and the bishop is smiling when we see him. And, as outsiders like to point out, we all pretty much look alike with our blue jean-ed baggy t-shirted bodies driving around in our beaten-up family sized vee-hikles. So what. There could be worse families to belong to and I’m kind of proud of mine.
Lets let the job descriptions fall where they may. My trash guy comes on Wednesday—maybe I’ll give him my out-of-date list of differences with the used kitty litter, and start enjoying how much we’re alike.
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