Reading Anyone

About a year ago, my friends and I were talking (via long email threads) about how we don't see each other enough and we don't get together for something other than a birthday or wedding or baby shower, and that nearly is not enough. And the idea was put out there to have a bookclub. So once a month or so, give or take because scheduling 8 women to get together is tricky, we go to someone's house and talk about a book. No really we do. Well apart of the time at least.

No let's talk about this bookclub. Yes, we choose some juicy literally novel--sorry no hood novels allowed--and read it. Holding off on all conversations about the book other than the random "Did you finish the book yet?" Husbands, children, jobs whatever are left behind as we potluck it up at someone's place and talk; and do we ever talk. The books are conduits to everything. Love: "Girl, let me tell you how I had to go off on (fill in the appropriate significant other's name here) for being a man." To work: "Sometimes I wonder if I'm doing the right things with my life, but if I am lord knows I need more money." To kids: "It's hard being a mother even when the father is around...followed by "I'm so scared to have a kid." If it's chance to talk, then we're there and we're doing it.

We're about 7 books in now, sparking in us the deep seeded sisterliness that ties us together after almost 10 years. I love my book club. It involves some of my favs--literature, food, alcohol (yes honey there must be at least 2 bottles of wine and some *ahem* hard liquor), and my girls. There is no pretentiousness. No one is acting appalled when someone says that they identified with the little white girl who felt sad and alone. No one is blaming the battered woman for not running for she knew nothing else. No one is talking above the girl's quest to get married because she thinks it's what she's supposed to do. Book club is an honest space where your opinions are heard, respected, maybe even dissected but never goes unappreciated.

Catch our status' on bookclub day, we're excited to get together, be free, and safe. We're posting how much we love our book club, and how we can't wait for the next one long before the current one has ended. We laugh until it hurts and sometimes cry a bit too--it's what we do when you're around love. And we end each time, sad that it's over, happy to have had that time away from everything that bumbles and busy our day, appreciating a vent session around a book, and loving each other a little more than when we came in.

Reading is FUNdamental.

Love & Light ya'll