Sisterhood

I went to see "Sex and the City 2" yesterday with two girlfriends. Women were everywhere, lined up. And this was only the 4:50 show on Saturday, Memorial Day Weekend. The line was out the door, down the escalator, around the block for the show after that. It was showing not only on 67th Street, but also just up Broadway at 84th Street. Unprecedented.

The movie was actually not all that good, after the shoes, the clothes, Big and Carrie's fabulous apartment; the gay wedding, the hotel in Abu Dhabi, and the fabulous Danish guy. Parts of it were actually rather pathetic and insulting, (i.e. Samantha dropping her condoms in the spice market - really tacky - and her lipstick! way too heavy). But it did have a few high points, notably Charlotte and Miranda confessing to each other over martinis that motherhood is not the fairy tale they thought it would be. I also liked the scene where the Arab women revealed their Western finery underneath those heavy black robes.

Other than those two scenes, it was mostly rather stupid.

But that obviously didn't matter, because the reviews were out by the time we saw it, which means that women are lining up to see it anyway. We really don't care that it might be bad. We are lining up for another reason, which I call "Sisterhood".

Despite recent magazine articles and chat shows that talk about women as natural enemies, women need each other, and we find any and every excuse to be together. In groups, in pairs, in threesomes; we meet, we shop, we eat, we see stupid movies, we bitch. We travel, read books, go out dancing together, plan our kids' teacher's retirement luncheon together, meet at the gym, swap clothes and tell stories, much as the ladies of "Sex and the City" do in every episode since the beginning of the series. We live our lives with, and through, each other. We do not tear each other down, we build each other up, in ways that our children, our jobs, and our men do not and cannot.

We even dress for each other, which is an interesting phenomenon in and of itself. Men do not actually like 3 inch Manolos, do not generally notice what color eye shadow we have on, and could not care less which designer's handbag we carry. (Unless they are gay men, or trannies, in which case they are, by definition, part of the Sisterhood).

The two women I went out with last night only met each other recently, at a swap party brunch at my house, yet found endless points of sisterhood as we dissected the movie over margaritas and guacamole at Gabriela's. Marriage. Divorce. Widowhood. Dating. The highs and lows of our lives. A discussion that keeps repeating itself, time and time again.

My mother, the lovely Joan, has a similar group of women friends, who have been connected in much the same way, for more than 50 years. She and her friends have witnessed several Presidents, various stock market cycles, many marriages, and numerous grandchildren. Life, illness, death, babies. But through all that, they have their girlfriends to turn to, as I have mine.

And it was Mom who told me to keep my eye out for the hot Danish guy in the movie, which she saw, with her girlfriends, before I did. Moral: Life, like the movie, may have its rough spots, but hopefully, there is a cute guy in a Jeep, just over the sand dune.