Heather Powers: Sisters

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'm so thankful for the last two months of getting to know my little sister again after living a half-a-world away for the last 10 years. We have spent time reminiscing. Acting goofy. Cooking: she is trying so very hard to make a cook out of me. Crafting: one morning we stopped the car and plucked wildflowers and cattails to make to flower arrangement for her front door. We have shopped: from the farmers market to back-to-school shopping with our three teenaged daughters, to late night runs to the store and we both have a fondness for a certain craft store that rhymes with knobby bobby. We've had movie nights watching self-indulgent chick flicks. Movie time with your sister, is there anything better? We are planning our first Thanksgiving together in 10 years. She is a closet Martha Stewart, she'll profess she isn't crafty - but she has mad skills in the kitchen and when it comes to decorating. 

My sister is my polar opposite. She's loud, I'm quite. She's friendly, I'm shy. She's a lion, I'm a mouse. She can let go and have fun, I play it safe and worry about everything. 

She does things and I realize how much she is like our mom. No one is ever a stranger. They know the clerks at their grocery store, the people they do business would all count them as friends, they know all their neighbors - if you are in a room for five minutes with them they will know half your life story. They are the kind of people you want to talk to, they invite you to share and actually listen. 

My sister is amazingly selfless. She will spend two days cooking a meal for family and friends, even though it's something she doesn't like to eat. She will drop everything to help a friend in need. She takes care of her family night and day. She'll pull up a chair and make beads with me if she sees me overwhelmed or bring a book to the studio and read with me late into the wee hours of the night if I am working on a crazy deadline.

  

I don't know anyone like I know my sister. When I'm with her we are immediately children again. Only so much better, because unlike the quote above we have outgrown all our sibling rivalries and are now each others biggest cheerleaders.

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You can learn more about Heather at her blog Humblebeads