Annatopia

Book Clubers, Booty Slappers and postcards from Madame Mao

For a little over 2 years now, a group has been gathering on a monthly basis to spend an evening together and delve into discussion over a book. The group has changed and morphed over the 2 years as some have moved away, some are infrequent visitors, some are life time members and some just didn’t make it through the first book(!). Nostalgia is not an indulgence of this group. As such, the Book Club carries on and we continue to gather and satisfy our appetites with books from various continents, from fiction to non-fiction to feminist sci-fi, from soft-erotic short stories to the other extreme (what would that be exactly – the opposite of “soft-erotic”? hmmm…). Heated conversations errupt around the plot of a book or characters and follow various interesting tangents that in some ways enable us to get to know one another in a fresh, more personal and hence penetrating way. Discussions struck up around a good piece of literature lend themselves to exploring and expressing personal thoughts and ideas that rarely get probed or brought to the surface when talking about TV shows or Hollywood blockbusters. It somehow goes beyond just the consumption of culture and enables us to be more engaged, creating opportunity to discuss, contemplate, debate, and argue. Seeing or understanding a story through another’s eyes can broadens one’s private horizons and perspectives and it make one more acutely aware of how uniquely we each perceive the world we share. I’m often left wondering where my personal thoughts and opinions originated and I wonder if anybody else questions the true source of their convictions…
The weekend book clubs are particularly special because a group goes away and gathers into a space that is generally too small to hold all of us – and yet we happily find our places on couches, beds, floors, tents and hammocks. Hanging out, reading the last pages of the selected book, drinking endless cups of various concoctions, snow-shoeing through magical forests or attempting a hill first time cross-country skiing (the forest is not so goddamn magical anymore), midnight walks, discussing the symbolism associated with sleeping with a bear (while Darryl Silver strums a tune) by a camp fire, playing full-contact-drunken-midnight-football on a frozen lake (classic probably because it was so spontaneous), being updated by Madame Mao and others about travel experiences and finding all the fun places where pig bear can be hidden purely for the amusement of shocking someone (again!) with his sadly hideous state.
We split up into cooking teams and enjoy each meal together, where conversations and fits of laughter spill out over the large table. Finding myself in a group of solid people, many of whom have become friends, creates an environment that often leaves me pulling out just a little and observing this wonderful interaction - the various senses of humors and how they are satisfied, the various relationships that have developed and spun in or out (and yes, the book club has had it’s incestuous moments), the distinct personalities and how they complement or contradict one another. We have become witnesses to one another as we bring to the table our lives, thoughts, various experiences and experiments.

All this in the guise of talking about a book. Lovely.

posted by Annatopia @ 8:25 AM