Midnight Call

“Sweet, crazy conversations full of half sentences, daydreams and misunderstandings more thrilling than understanding could ever be.”  Toni Morrison 

Last night, while hopped up on many different types of pain meds (I was on day 9 of a migraine but that is neither here nor there), I got an episode of "Alien Sister Hand". OH? You don't know what ASH is? That is when your heart knows more that your mind, and your heart takes control of your hand and before you know it, your phone is in your hand and your sister's number has been dialed, and the phone is up to your ear and it's ringing, and in a split second you get it... She needs you. From hundreds of miles away, through the drugged haze, through the tiredness of the day, in the wee hours of the night, over the sounds of the video game going on...over everything else in front of you, somehow, your sister heart knew that she needed you and so, the phone made it into your hand. There is cursory conversation, but she knows. It's time to talk. We have had this dance too many times over the years. And my husband knows too, he grabs the remote and turns down the video game and looks at me and just shakes his head a bit- in wonderment? In exasperation? We don't know, my sister and I, what our men think of us really, and we can't care for we are sistahs and we do what we do and what we must.  

“Sisters function as safety nets in a chaotic world simply by being there for each other.”--Carol Saline

 And then it was my turn because I needed her too, that's how it goes I suppose. We take turns, one goes first and then the other for the big things, later on it gets all jumbled up and we talk over and under and roller coaster-y, but that is after we have settled the stuff that upsets us. So we take the big things and we turn them inside out and upside down, we apply the sisterly soul version of stain treater known as laughter, where no one else could show us laughter before and we forgive each other of whatever the other one thinks she has done that is so horrible. The other thing we do is bring out the sharp truths that no one else can dare to say to us. Those things that you know you need to do, or hear, those things that your own heart has been whispering but you are afraid to face. You say those things and you hear your sister weep, or you hear them and weep and softly say, "I know, I know" then you make each other laugh again because you have each faced another monster under the bed together again and come out okay and didn't have to wake-up Daddy afterall.

“Sister. She is your mirror, shining back at you with a world of possibilities. She is your witness, who sees you at your worst and best, and loves you anyway. She is your partner in crime, your midnight companion, someone who knows when you are smiling, even in the dark. She is your teacher, your defense attorney, your personal press agent, even your shrink. Some days, she's the reason you wish you were an only child.” --Barbara Alpert

 (*I rarely wished I was an only child)

So today I am thinking about my sister, more than usual I suppose, because last night we talked about when we were teenagers, sort of a twilight time between that stormy establishing independence phase and becoming adult women. I think that this time is just as magical as being 6 and 10 together but it isn't given as much attention in literature or in the verbal histories of women, so many sisters miss what is happening between them. Melissa posted a FB post about this time a couple of days ago and I love that she did, it was supposed to be happy but, I knew she was missing me terribly, for one thing, there was about two too many of these ! for it to be happy but, only her sister would know that. And for another thing I immediately began to cry for the desperate need of my sister in the same room. 

“You can kid the world, but not your sister.” -- Charlotte Gray 

Let us be clear here. We fight. I am not above throwing a cookbook at her head if I think she's being stupid and she will be more than verbal if she thinks I am being stupid. We can clear an entire house of adults and children with a Sister War that not a single person but us can even begin to understand the political ramifications of, and it can be so terrible and fierce that no person within earshot can ever imagine how we would ever be on speaking terms again, but more than likely in about 20 minutes time you will find us laughing and crying and almost back to normal. I will never stop loving or abandon my sister. I will always go to her aid. I will always answer her call. The love I have for her comes easy as a summer rain and is just as predictable as the love I have for my children. We have shared the same murky womb, we have so many shared childhood experiences-lost pets, yelling to each other over the sound of grinding big-wheels in the summertime, waiting overnight in wintertime for "the branches to fall", laying flat in the grass in summer and watching for the Blimp...she's simply my dark eyed sister and I love her.