There are a couple of reasons I’m in a book club.
1. Books.
Being in a book club is the only way I get books read. I seem to need deadlines to accomplish certain things, and reading books is one of those things. (I, too, need that “perfect pressure,” Heath.) This annoys me to no end and I hope to shift that fact about myself one day (or perhaps just accept it) but for now, book clubs keep me reading. Usually nonstop for the last 48 hours before we meet.
2. Food, wine, and friends.
Really these might be the main reasons I’m in a book club.
I hosted book club last night, and we had a little of all three. Plus we scored an evening in the 70s, which meant that after a couple weeks with the French doors closed, we actually got to sit outside on the screen porch again.
3. Life.
That’s the other reason I’m in a book club. Because I’m living life. And books—and talking about books with people, and talking about life with people—seem to enrich my heart in sometimes deep ways.
The book we just read, and the conversations we had last night, have left me with some new perspective this morning…
Last night one friend sat through the whole gathering feeling nauseous, as she has felt for the past several weeks, nonstop. She laughed, she listened, she said thoughtful and meaningful things. But she felt like crap. (I’m guessing this, but I think I’m guessing right… The girl is pregnant, people! Ugh.)
Another friend sat through last night’s gathering with aching pain after a recent surgery. She too laughed, and listened, and said meaningful and witty things. But she was hurting. (I know this because she said it. Ouchy.)
I myself sat through last night, laughing, and listening, and leading questions, and serving drinks, and hopefully saying something thoughtful now and then. And I was hurting too. Not physically, but in quite a few other ways. Oh my gosh suddenly that sounds so pitiful. I don’t mean it to. Seriously this is not a cry for help. Actually this is my point exactly.
At least three of us were in some sort of distracting discomfort last night. Possibly all of us, if everyone had laid it out on the table. But at the same time, we were still engaging in life. Not pretending we weren’t in pain, or ignoring it, or denying it, or medicating it away. Just sitting with both our personal pain and the shared pleasure of being together.
Did I mention that we laughed?
Like, a lot.
As in, I should possibly apologize to my neighbors (and for sure R-kids) for a little extra racket on the screen porch late last night. I haven’t laughed that hard in a while. It was goooood.
But come on. What’s with this scenario??? I’m supposedly this both/and girl. I believe in both/ands. I know that’s pretty much the only way life happens—in both/and ways. Blah, blah, blah… The fact is, this one I don’t like. Not right now. Not at all! I would like the pain and discomfort to go away, please. For me, for all of us. Why is the misery part of the story? So we can grow? Heal? Get to something better? Seriously. Ugh. Whose idea was this?
That’s where it’s at today, folks. I’m doing it—I’m just not liking this part, and I’m feeling a little whiney about it.
This morning I do keep thinking about something Christopher said, the autistic main character in the book we just read:
Sometimes that’s all that can be done.
Sometimes you can add in a little laughing too, or at least someone to sit next to you, if you’re lucky.
by julie rybarczyk
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