I am eternally fascinated by the dynamic between pairs of sisters. This fascination obviously stems from the fact that I am one half of a sister pair, but also I seem to always be surrounded by sisters, among my cousins there are 3 pairs of sisters, my maternal grandmother is one of 3 girls, my paternal grandmother has 6 sisters and when I look at the women who make up my inner circle of friends I can count on one hand the ones who have no sisters at all.
With this as a backdrop its no wonder I’m constantly intrigued by and reading about famous sisters The Bronte’s, The Middleton’s, The Williams’, Queen Elizabeth and Princess Margaret(my favourite real life sisters) and why all the fictional TV, Film and Literature characters I adore are all sisters: Chekov’s Olga, Masha and Irina, Jane Austen’s Bennett’s, The March sisters, Designing Women’s Julia and Suzanne, Claire and Fleabag and more recently Agnes and Ada from the Gilded Age. I’m fascinated by pairs of sisters -how they communicate with and about each other -and its interesting to me that when there are more than two sisters you will always find two that gravitate towards each other.
My fascination is such that not only do the films, books and TV I attract into my life usually have sisters at the heart of it but I find when I’m writing films and plays there is always a sister somewhere central to the protagonist, my protagonists who are usually a fragment of myself cannot function without a sister much like I cant.
I enjoy watching The Crown and observing the relationship between Elizabeth and Margaret, especially when they were played by Olivia Colman and Helena Bonham Carter who have such magical chemistry and rapport -its hard to believe those two are not actually sisters in real life-. I see so much of my sister and I in Elizabeth and Margaret’s relationship, that best friend, that reassuring lifeline, the quiet confidante who keeps your secrets.
Recently I was scrolling through a streaming service trying to find something to watch when the site suggested a film called “Finding your Feet” a very very sweet little British ensemble piece(my favorite kind of film) which tells the story of 2 sisters who after a decade find themselves reconnecting again and then suffering a loss, it was so beautiful I sat and sobbed and sent my sister the most out of character voice note telling her how much I loved her and that I would be half a human if I ever lost her, just the most out of character message for me to send, which of course got left on read until the next morning and why I will never send her a message like that again HA!
My sister and I are very close and we often wonder what voodoo magic spell our parents cast over us to ensure we would be so close. There is a 2 year age gap between my sister and I so she was my first friend, my mother tells a great story of how her and my father always found my sister out of her cot and couldn’t understand how she had gotten out only to discover that I was unscrewing the bars from the cot at night and taking her out so she could play with me, perhaps it wasn’t voodoo but helping with a jailbreak that cemented our relationship.
I often tell my sister we are different enough that we can coexist and similar enough to be really great friends. The dynamic between my sister and I is ever evolving, the balance of strength constantly shifting between us depending on who needs what. I am the eldest but sometimes she assumes that role because I need her too, I never have to ask her to she’s just so acutely aware of what I need and she’s effortless when she does it. I love the fact that my sister is smarter and kinder than I am, it makes me want to be a better person and I know she likes that I’m far more outgoing than she is which means in public I will take the lead and she can hide behind me until she’s comfortable.
Growing up my mother dressed us alike ALL THE TIME ,when we were old enough to be aware of it we were not impressed , we found it annoying, people kept asking if we were twins, did they not know I was the eldest dammit!(Now I secretly love it when people think my sister is older) when we were finally old enough to choose our own clothes we sort of rebelled against each other ,we could not have had bigger differences in our wardrobes, we refused to have anything of the same using our clothing as a way of establishing ourselves as individuals desperately ignoring our very obvious similarities. Now we’re adults and no longer live together but somehow we are finding ourselves arriving to events wearing the exact thing. The one thing we hated as children we now find charming as adults because of course!
My sister and I often discuss the dynamic between us, its a great mystery to us when we hear of sisters who do not get on well with each other who are in competition with one another rather than celebrating each other or we marvel at films where sisters have these knock down and drag ‘em fights I think we just sort of assume all sister pairs are like us, walking around using movie quotes as part of a conversation or using foreign accents like some sort of transatlantic nomad. Obviously my sister and I have had disagreements and arguments we are normal people but I cannot think of a single time when the fight has been so big that its altered our relationship, we are so ideologically aligned that our arguments are ridiculous surface level “ did you take my skirt” nonsense.
I think people must find my sister and I intimidating and slightly terrifying as a pair not because we’re awful people (god at least I hope not) but because we can have entire conversations with just our eyes and I think that can be a little scary for people not familiar with our dynamic, though I think this is true of all sisters who are close and tuned in to one another on a mental and emotional level, I am certainly intimidated by certain pairs of sisters in my life.
There is a beautiful scene in the crown where Margaret is going through a rough time and Elizabeth comforting her says “ of all the people everywhere, you are the closest and most important to me” that accurately describes how I feel about my sister. There used to be a TV show called ‘Sisters’ which had the following tagline “The men in your life may leave you, Children grow up, parents pass away. The only ones who are there for you, From cradle to grave, Are your sisters.” I’ve never read a more accurate statement, we will have husbands and children and we will live on different continents but there is that invisible string constantly pulling us together, the string of shared experiences, the string of being the only people in the world who know what it is to be the daughters of our parents, the sister to our brother.
I recognise how fortunate I am to have this person who would endure fire and brimstone for me, who would slay the dragon if I asked and who knows I would peel my skin off for her. I have friends who have tragically lost their sisters and my heart bleeds for them, the loss of a parent is devastating but I think the loss of my sister would create a chasm so deep its unimaginable to me and then I have friends who do not have sisters at all . I am so richly blessed by my sister that I hope I can pay some of that good sister love and kindness forward to my friends who are without.
Ok I’m rambling so let me end by saying : Here’s to sisters everywhere but mostly to mine without whom life would be unbearable.
x
A sister...
Gorgeous words as always T.! What a gift Sisters are...