Writing With Abandon

Today we had our monthly book club. I was originally going to write about how I got influenced by Con’s slice, “The Egg Thingy,” but I’m so filled up after book club that I’ve just been sitting here on my balcony, staring at the blank page on my Jetpack app, basking in that feeling.

I’ve been in a couple of book clubs before — one during the pandemic that met on Zoom, another my second year at KLA — but this one is something special.

Gianna started it up in the fall. Her mom recommended making the book club as big as possible, because there are always people who can’t attend the meeting on a certain date or can’t read the book that month because they get too busy. By having a lot of members, you’re more likely to keep it going, because at least there will be someone attending each month. So Gi’s extended the invite every time she hears that someone’s a reader or trying to get back into reading, which means our club has grown since September.

Our book club now has 12 members, and each of them has a unique perspective and life story that they bring to the meetings. Most of the members work at KLA, but not all of us. Although we usually meet at Books & Books, today we went to Moni’s house.

We each brought something to eat or drink. Moni made a cheese board. We wore our swimsuits and sat in the pool. We laughed, we talked, a few of us cried a bit.

Sometimes our conversations center on the books and the plot and the characters. But more often, the conversations jump out of the book and into our own lives and values and opinions.

I’ve so enjoyed getting to know each of these women better over the course of this year. I wish we could meet every two weeks instead of every month! But I’ll hang onto the energy from today and savor it until the next meeting.