Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches

A spider's life can't help being something of a mess, with all this trapping and eating flies. "Charlotte's Web, E. B. White Rebecca Snyder read this quote to us six years ago at our first Sisterhood meeting. I've had it in my journal since then, scratched in pencil on the back of a Juicy Fruit gum wrapper. "I never thought I'd live like an insect," Rebecca said after that with a discouragement I sensed was rare for her even though I didn't know her well that first night. "But, look at me"I have way too much in common with the spider, especially all that messy part." We were all quiet for a minute. "At least we don't need to eat any flies," Carly Winston finally added softly. She wasn't being funny. We'd all had our share of eating strange things lately. "Chemo is bad enough." The silence stretched even longer after that. Each one of us was thinking of the flies or the chemo or both. Rose could barely keep us focused on knitting that night. She showed us how to hold our new # 19 needles, which are the big needles that beginners use when they learn to knit. I wish I could say we all agreed to call ourselves the Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches that first night, but it wouldn't be true. My name's Marilee Davidson and I have been voted to be the one to tell you how we started six years ago. I have everyone's permission to tell you how it was with us back then, and I'm writing it all down in this journal. We are seventy-five percent sure"the vote is three to one"that we will try to place this journal where others can read it so, if you're reading it now, I guess we finally all decided to let our story go forth and speak to who it will. Anyway, the first thing you need to know is that on our first night together we couldn't agree on anything, not even a name. Rebecca"Becca for short"wanted to call us The Bald Ones although most of us hadn't become bald yet and weren't looking forward to it. I'll admit I argued with Becca over this. Only she would even want a name like The Bald Ones. I thought Becca was strange at first because of the quote and the name suggestion, but I gradually came to realize that it was just the way she met life"jumping ahead to the problems. When we started, Becca was sixteen, dark-haired and vigorous. She had an opinion about everything and pounded into life even though she was sick. Picture that bunny on television who advertises the batteries. That was Becca, only she was skinnier than the bunny"she made me promise to add that"and was smoothskinned instead of fuzzy white. I'm adding that on my own out of simple jealousy" Becca's skin is a light olive shade and it doesn't freckle or blemish or burn like my pale, partially English skin does. Anyway, I wish you could have seen Becca in those days. Every move she made had energy in it. Maybe that was why she believed in telling it like it is, no matter how unpleasant the "it" might be. Looking back, I think she was hoping that if she was only gut-wrenchingly honest enough about her cancer diagnosis, the sting of it would go away. As if maybe the whole thing was a pill she needed to swallow and so she was better off just gulping it down quick before the bad taste spread to the rest of her mouth. Becca was Jewish and lived with her family down by the Fairfax district in Los Angeles. She used to say her "people" knew how to fight back, but sometimes I thought she looked scared when she said it. That didn't stop her from pounding ahead, though. That was our Becca. Eighteen-year-old, Carly, on the other hand, was tall, blonde and serene. She didn't pound anywhere; she glided. She lived in San Marino which had to mean her family was rich even though she never said anything about money or what her parents did for work. In fact, she didn't say much about her parents at all, not even to complain about them, so I guessed they were pretty iTronstad, Janet is the author of 'Sisterhood of the Dropped Stitches ', published 2007 under ISBN 9780373812981 and ISBN 0373812981.