There is really only one person who knows most everything about me –Mollie.

My sister lives in New Orleans and has a long and complex history there. One of living in many neighborhoods, and once proud homes with marble fireplaces and 15 ft doorways. The house on St. Charles St, for example, was the most grand, with its long, creaky stairway, tiny kitchens, immense living room, and ceiling-high windows. It was long past its heyday.

Everything in New Orleans seems to be turning back to the earth – a state of slow decay– resigning itself to the deep lush jungle, the rich smell of earth, the lingering salt of the banks.

Mollie and her kids sit on its docks and pull long silvery fish out of its waters. Next to old men of mysterious nationalities, fishing for supper in dime store chairs.

Nobody really knows me like my sister. The deepest truths exist between us, ones that don’t need speaking. The knowledge of the carpets we played on, the hills we sledded on, the beetle on the tree with the tire swing, the exploration of 3 1/2 acres – a kingdom at ages 5 and 7.

The worst of me, the best of me. She knows. And that alone is a bond. The shared experience of parents, of moving every two years, of a little brother.

And now, as grown mothers, both single mothers, both so much and so little in common. Yet there is always a deep knowledge of eachother, as we talk on the phone, and share our lives, from one side of the country to another.

This is a little bike painting I made in her honor, a little Christmas present for Mollie – shhhhh!