Read and Read Again

I was invited to a book club meeting today. A friend I've made, a woman who came to see my yard this summer, invited me to meet her friends. A chance to meet new people and talk about books? Count me in.

This month's meeting was to share a book we are currently reading and to recommend a book for the group to read next year. My current read is The Nine: Inside the Secret World of the Supreme Court by Jeffrey Toobin. Several years ago I thoroughly enjoyed The Brethren: Inside the Supreme Court by Bob Woodward and Scott Armstrong. Now I'd like to have a better understanding of the current Supreme Court as we head into the new presidential term. I am 50 pages in, and so far so good.

My selection of a book to recommend for the group to read didn't take much thought. I pulled one of my all-time favorites off the shelf ~ Back When We Were Grownups by Anne Tyler. I first read the book in 2003, and again a couple years later. The opening line reminds me of why I love this book: "Once upon a time, there was woman who discovered she had turned into the wrong person." Oh, my....

One of my favorite quotes from the book is on page 87: "Distance was the key, here: the distant, alluring mystery woman whose edges had not been worn dull by the constant minor abrasions of daily contact." What woman my age doesn't know exactly what that means?

Then I tried something that Annie wrote about this week ~ turn to page 123, find the 5th sentence, and write the next three. In this case, the essence of the main character comes through loud and clear: "In fact, some part of her had always wanted softness and abundance - the Aunt Ida look. (Which may have been why she had slipped off every diet she'd every attempted: the first pounds she lost invariably seemed to come from her cheeks, and her face would turn prim and prunish like her mother's.) The problem was, soft and abundant women were seen to their best advantage when naked." I really do love this book. Time to read it again.

It was good to meet new people and hear about what they are reading. Except for another woman and myself, the people there today are retired. I am not retired, not do I want to be. I left when they started talking about their next "senior" activity. I cannot see the day when I will call myself a "senior." I am not in denial that such things exist, but I am not there yet. Maybe when I'm 70....