I was in Starbucks with Redman, and we were examining the goodies in the display case when a black gentleman spoke to me. "Excuse me, sister, are you on line?"

"No, no, you go, we're deciding," I said.

"Thank you, sister," he said, and stepped up to order. Meanwhile Redman was watching, and, I could tell, processing. I got my coffee, he got his treat, and we sat down at a table. It took him all of four seconds to dive in.

"Why did that man call you 'sister'?"

I smiled. "Well he didn't know my name, and maybe he likes to say 'sister' instead of 'ma'am'."

"Do you like that?"

"I do actually," I said.

He was done with the topic and into his game. I drank my coffee and thought about the salutation of "sister", and a very vivid memory I have of its usage.

It was a train ride over twenty years ago. Jeeps and I had broken up, and I was taking the train home from Manhattan with a bag full of belongings. You know that ride, right? It's as good as it gets. I had no recollection of how I'd become so entrenched in his apartment, and now I figured it was going to take me a month to extricate myself, and I could not wrap my mind around the fact that I was no longer part of a couple.

I sat by the window, pressed up against the side of the car, wanting to disappear in the crack between the seat and the wall, wanting to be invisible, wanting to die. I'm not one for crying in public but I was exhausted, and when the tears came, fuck it, I just let them fall. I was one miserable bitch and the goddamn train wasn't even at 125th Street.

Then someone tapped my arm.

"Are you all right, sister?" This black woman was suddenly sitting there, reaching across the empty middle seat between us and offering me a tissue. I took it and tried to smile. "Heartbreak hell," I said.

She nodded. "I thought that might be it. I'm sorry. You go ahead and cry." She opened a book and started to read and left me be. I looked back out the window, clutching my ball of damp tissue, strangely touched by the "sister" she had used.

Are you all right, sister?

Sister.

I liked that she called me sister. Why didn't we all do that, why wasn't that salutation the norm for all women, black, white or otherwise? It should feel natural to call an unknown woman of my own age bracket "sister" rather than "Hey, um..." or worse, "ma'am."

So I tried it out, not long after, in the mall when I saw a woman struggling to get on the escalator with a stroller and a toddler. I said, "Do you need help, sister?" She smiled and thanked me and we got her safely aboard, but my insides had cringed. I felt dumb. "Sister" felt phony, like trying on a jacket three sizes too small. I didn't try it again.

Fairly recently, I was on line at a deli in the city, wearing one of my favorite grey sheaths, and the woman behind me tapped my shoulder and said, "Sister, you are wearing the hell out of that dress." I thanked her, burning with pleasure, and jealous of how natural and wonderful "sister" sounded in her mouth. Damn her.

So anyway, while I can't say it, I'm always acutely aware of the sisterhood. We women...we're all in this together, but too often in our youth we view each other as competition. It's in our later, wiser years that we come to realize how much we rely on each other—not only our close girlfriends, but more and more often, strangers.

I've been sponsoring women through Women for Women International for seven years. Besime, Hakima, Regina, Delphine, Olive, Marcella and Nenyitmwa: they are my global sisters. In the every day, I try to sponsor women just by saying something. It's so simple and has such an impact but too often things go unsaid. I try to say them.

If I see a woman wearing a knockout pair of shoes: I tell her. If the dress is fabulous: I tell her. Because when a woman, a stranger, leans into your space and gives you a tissue or a compliment, she becomes your sister. That woman on the train, she is my sister, and I often think of her, twenty years later when I am now forever entrenched with Jeeps, and I thank her for being in that seat, thank her just for being socially fearless and asking:

Are you all right, sister?

Yes. I'm all right. Thank you, sister.

Photo Credits

The weekend finished up nicely. Last night some friends came over for dinner and we had the first cookout of the season. Flank steak, turkey burgers and dogs. Steamed asparagus, baked french fries and Ina Garten's fabulous pesto-pea salad. This salad rocks. All it is is spinach tossed with regular old frozen peas, pesto, parmesan and toasted pine nuts. Garlicky as hell and sooooooooo good.

Today was a nice day. Jeeps took Panda to swimming and came back with one of my nephews. The weather had been calling for rain all weekend which never manifested itself. It would get cloudy and sprinkle a little, and then the clouds would break up and move on and the sun shine down. So the kids were outside playing baseball with Jeeps and I had my fingers in the dirt as usual.

Along on a walk comes Amy W. with her kids Will (who is in Julie's class) and Nancy. Hi, come on in, come see our new secret paths, come play baseball, we have a new swing, come see, come see! A little while later, down Butlerville comes Linda and her brood, who are out on a litter walk, bless their hearts. But the good deed is quickly forgotten and now three more kids join the mob.

Next thing you know it's a spontaneous playdate, the best kind! Amy, Linda and I are talking gardens and other mom-stuff; JP is pitching; Genny and Nancy are picking violets; Julie and Ryan come up with the ingenious idea to play outfield with butterfly nets. When I sit down in one of the Adirondack chairs, AJ runs inside to get books and runs back out and into my lap, "Read please."

I love when this stuff just happens and you know, it doesn't happen much if you don't go outside.

Seriously. In the past couple years I've been silently observing suburbia in my own private experiment. After school hours when I'm driving around all the different towns and neighborhoods, picking up, dropping off, running errands, what have you...I drive by these houses and nobody is outside. The houses with manicured lawns, the trampoline, the jumbo deluxe swing set: not one kid playing. The houses with the long tree-lined driveways and the three car garages: no kids are bicycling or shooting hoops or playing with chalk. The old farmhouses with the mouthwatering porches or the to-die-for wraparound veranda: nobody sitting there. Where the heck is everyone? The latter really pisses me off. You'd have to drag me kicking and screaming off that kind of porch and you leave it empty! You don't DESERVE it!!!

Lately people are bemoaning our loss of "community". How we've become distanced and isolated behind the walls of our houses, even fearful. Why not go outside and play? Sit on your porch or steps or lawn. Wave at your neighbors. Get visible.

I love that my vegetable garden is close to the road. When I'm out there, cars slow down and look to see what I'm doing. Smiles. Waves. Sometimes a window rolled down, "What are you growing this year?"

A couple years ago, I had beautiful snapdragons out the wazoo. I let Julie and Maya cut them into bouquets and set up a little table to sell them. What the hell, right? Lemonade stands, eh, nobody really stops but flowers? Come on, on a Friday evening going home from work, who could resist? We put up signs on sawhorses "BRING HOME FLOWERS TONIGHT! FRESH CUT! $3/bunch!!"

Not one taker. Oh well, I enjoyed them myself. This year I've got tulips growing behind the fenced-in beds. Let's see who can resist those!! I also have an idea brewing for this fall: every family in the neighborhood buys 1 or 2 bags of daffodils and plants them along their bit of roadside. If we did that for the next five years, can you imagine how gorgeous it would be?

Made panko-chicken for the kids' dinner and salmon for me and JP. Then after dinner I made brownies from scratch because life is beautiful.