And not just the women in Brooklyn.

You know how, if you stay up really late, you get hungry again? It's like you have to have a snack or there's no way you'll ever fall asleep. In celebration of my late-night vigil to finish A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, I had waffles at an ungodly hour.  

This might be one of my new favorite books. I love it. It has so many beautiful and profound passages. I could share forever. I will limit myself to this. It's underlined AND dog-eared--that must mean something.

"Most women had the one thing in common: they had great pain when they gave birth to their children. This should make a bond that held them all together; it should make them love and protect each other against the man-world. But it was not so. It seemed like their great birth pains shrank their hearts and their souls. They stuck together for only one thing: to trample on some other woman . . . whether it was throwing stones or by mean gossip. It was the only kind of loyalty they seemed to have."               -Betty Smith's A Tree Grows in Brooklyn

Birth pains aside, I first noticed this in the mall at the ripe age of twelve. Walking around the mall, fellow teenage girls would give me dirty looks. It was teenage girl speak for "I hate you because you're one of me." I never understood it. We still hate each other. We compete for nicer homes, more stylish clothes, and the most perfect children when, really, we just need to hold each other up. To embrace the meaning of sisterhood.