I just realized today that August 5th was “National Sister Day.” While I am about 5 weeks too late, I still wanted to take this opportunity to give a shout out to my three sisters, without whom I would not be who I am. Having three younger sisters is amazing for numerous reasons, some of which are just “show” reasons. Instead of “Little Women” being the four daughters of Dr. March, people have always kidded us we were “the Four daughters of Dr. Polla.” The “Polla Sisters” even inspired Vanessa Beecroft, famed contemporary artist fascinated by women, to do an art “project” featuring the four of us.
More seriously, one of the hardest things about living in the US (perhaps the only hard thing?!) is that I do not get to see them as often as I would like. At least now we have Sunday phonecalls, sometimes Sunday Polla Sisters Skype sessions, and get togethers just the four of us whenever I return to Geneva. We talk boys, we talk family, we talk business – as indeed we are owners of two family businesses, Forever Laser Institut and Alchimie Forever. My life would not be complete without them, Cyrille, Rachel, and Roxane.
Given my own experiences, I am naturally interested in sisterhood in general. Some of my favorite famous sister-pairs include:
– Not surprisingly: Louisa May Alcott and her three sisters, as they are portrayed in Little Women
– Venus and Serena Williams, who played 8 Grand Slam single Matches against each other (Serena won 6 of those)
– The Steele sisters from Jane Austen’s Sense and Sensibility
– The Brönte sisters who published their respective books in 1847 (Charlotte’s Jane Eyre, Emily’s Wuthering Heights, and Anne’s Agnes Grey)
– The Brady Bunch sisters (in particular Jane who always complained that “All I hear all day long at school is how great Marcia is at this, or how wonderful Marcia did that. Marcia, Marcia, Marcia!”
– The Olsen twins, in particular given that they run a $100 million business seemingly quite happily and apparently still love each other
But I love my sisters the best!
