A couple of weekends ago the annual Mermaid Parade took place in Coney Island and I got an e-mail with the subject line: Was it really 15 years ago today?! You see, a decade-and-a-half ago a group of friends and I climbed aboard a Cadillac, donned some fishnets and glitter and became a part of the parade. The fact that the car wasn't really ours and the parade wasn't really a parade (in the drive-down-the-road-at-a-steady-clip-while-doing-a-touch-pearls-and-wave-move-to-those-on-the-sidelines sense) only served to bond us more closely. We became known as The Mermaids. That we're only sometimes in touch with one another these days does not alter in any way the great and hysterical moments we had together. Moments that had begun before that fateful day in the sun when we painted up a car that one of us had, er, won(?) in a poker game, drove to Coney Island in very small amounts of clothing and fishnet stockings (under which most of us had forgotten to put on sunscreen so that at day's end our legs looked like we'd been beaten with a fly swatter), climbed on top of the metal machine that felt to be at least 180 degrees Fahrenheit to the touch, found ourselves creeping down the parade route at no more than 5 miles an hour while swatting away creeps who kept spraying us with beer and trying to take liberties while one of our amazing ladies who was driving and who happened to be pretty rad with the boxing gloves got out of the car every few feet and said "You wanna piece of me? You come any closer and that's what your gonna get." and we smiled and waved and then... we ran out of gas (apparently we were so busy forgetting sunscreen that we also forgot gasoline). the fact that we were pretty much at the end of the route—and our last nerve—motivated us to, as I remember it, abandon the car on the street and go ride the cyclone, then have some drinks, then i don't know what else. But I do know that the car was never seen again. And I'm not totally sure why...but i also know that from that day was spawned a series of monthly Mermaid dance parties at a club in NYC called Don Hill's that became legendary for fun and fabulousness.
And in thinking about this time and looking at the pictures of us (one of which is above), I realize how incredible it is, and how lucky I am, to have the ladies I do in my life. While the group may morph and ebb and flow into varying women at specific times of life, the thread that runs through it is the experience of that moment. The mermaids came at a time when the music business was my life, and we all inhabited that world in one way or another. We brought out a sort of fearlessness in each other that I still call on to this day, a confidence born of camaraderie that felt invincible.
And it wasn't only those five women at that time: there were at least a half-dozen others for whom I'd have (and still would) give&do anything. My two oldest friends who I'd known in Cali and who'd moved to NYC around the same time as I did—and who I'm still lucky enough to know today—were the bane of countless friday nights at our regular bar in the east village (next to the laundromat where miraculously my friend and I managed to get our clothes clean between shots). And the dinners I get to have today with two friends who I also knew/met in music biz days that now have amazing kids and lives that, though seemingly different from my day-to-day, bring me right back to the comfort zone of who and how we are. These four ladies remind me of just how awesome it is to be curious about what's next. We know where we've come from and what we've come through, we don't know what's to come, yet the humor and wonder of us gives me hope. And no matter how long between coming together again, whether by phone or face, brings the joy of picking up where we left off.
My dance ladies inspire another level of connection that is born out of newness, though the years they do roll, and the discovery that our passion for what we do physically and see in others and onstage is ongoing. This wrap-around brings me the confidence to keep finding out what my body and mind are capable of, especially when I start to go down the road of time&age, yet any misgivings I have disappear when we're all together. And, in fact, the studio introduced me to a type of friendship that had nothing to do with movement in careers and everything to do with movement in body&soul. Again, though many of the women I knew in my original class are rolling and tumbling out of my sight, they're not out of my mind&heart and those initial days I think about with amazement because they were minus the competitive streak that can so often come from women's groupings.
In writing my book I'm coming across many examples (in fact my entire thesis is based upon) the fact that so often women do things in competition with each other: fashion, body modification, money making and love making being at the top of the list. And while a little rivalry can sometimes be a healthy moment (read: when I did a pole inversion I hadn't done in awhile—and didn't think i could actually do anymore—because I was in a group with two women that I was determined to not flail in front of), I know I've been incredibly lucky to be with women who just bring the equality. Maybe I'm just naive and missing some cues, but overall I've felt that no matter where I am financially, professionally or generationally I'm in the company of women who teach, support, inspire and entertain me and that makes it so much fun to give it right back. Even as I write this I think of more and more ladies I want to mention who are in/and have been in my life, yet that would make this post go on until next year. In essence, before I'm tempted to start belting out a sappy "wind under wings" kind of ditty, I'm going to wrap it up knowing that the smiles, memories and fun continue!
