THE LADIES OF THE CLUB

WE ARE ALL GODDESSES

My birthday card from Judy last year!

The Ladies of CRS Book Club Christmas Party December 2006

All day long last Friday, I suffered from a hangover of sorts. No, I didn't drink alcohol; all I had was sparkling cider. The only coffee I had was decaf. Yet, for hours after I got home, I had a buzz from the sheer stimulative powers of book club and my fondness for these seven ladies.

There must be some powers at work when we gather. Past meetings have featured microbursts, power outages, floods, fierce thunderstorms. We joke that we are so powerful that we unleash the powers of nature. Could we be witchy women?

How fitting that Judy, Thursday's hostess, chose to celebrate The Strong Woman. (Judy often creates themes around the topics of the books she chooses - thank goodness we aren't all required to follow suit.) She left her Christmas tree up and decorated it with apples to celebrate Eve (our first strong woman?) Our dessert was apple crisp and our drink was the aforementioned sparkling apple cider.

The book we discussed was "The Ladies' Man." Yep, a rat, a Don Juan, a gigolo, a user, a narcissist, a predator, may I say? We all agreed that at our age, we would recognize a Ladies' Man in a New York minute. But would we have spotted him so quickly in our 20s? Although none of us said it, I think we are all relieved to have 30 years' worth of experience under our belts, even though we may have a few wrinkles on our faces.

It's amazing how one topic can lead to another in our discussions. Soon we were talking about the subjugation of women, for example, the women in "Snow Flower and the Secret Fan". Why are there so many male dominated societies? Is it because of men's physical strength? Women's willingness to forgive and forget for the sake preserving home and family? We wondered how many matriarchal societies there have been in the history of the world - time for one of us to do some research. Did the author of "The Ladies Man" even think of those subjects while she was writing the book? I love how one idea casts ripples that spread and spread.

We, collectively, love the idea of "The Strong Woman." I see her as the goddess in all of us.