2020 Life Logs, Day 70: Book Club at The Cottage
Date: Tuesday, March 10, 2020
Weather: Partly Sunny and Breezy; High 50 degrees, Low 33 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
Today it was my turn to host my Newcomers Book Club. Seven of the eleven women were here and we had a very insightful discussion about this month’s book, The Underground Railway by Colson Whitehead. Reading this book rattled my soul. Colson writes in a way that allowed me feel some of the pain that slaves felt. One of the statements early in the book that drew me in was made at the end of a rare evening of the slaves having a birthday celebration. “The music stopped. The circle broke. . . Then it comes, always—the overseer’s cry, the call to work, the shadow of the master, the reminder that she is only a human for a tiny moment across the eternity of her servitude.” The book is full of prophetic and heartbreaking statements like this and that led to deep discussions today.
I took Shadow to Heather and Jed’s and left him there in his crate during the Book Club meeting. I knew that there was no way to keep him quiet enough to have a meaningful discussion. But taking him there gave me the chance to do my weekly laundry. I put my laundry in to wash during the meeting. When I picked Shadow up afterwards, I put the laundry in the dryer and then when I went over after school to take Ollie to his tennis lesson, I picked up my laundry. So, today was a book club and a laundry day. Tomorrow is set aside as a writing day. My next Memoir Writing class is on Thursday and I haven’t yet done my homework.
