no guilt...

From Perfume to My Antonia I have had such grand adventures with The No Guilt Book Club.

No guilt for sitting on the sofa and being served like a queen, no guilt that husbands have been left at home to help the children get their homework done. Or worse yet, that the entire household of the hostess has been banished to entertain themselves for the evening so that the girls can meet in peace. Peace among wine indulging women being a relative thing.

The husbands and families are shooed away, because we don’t want to reveal our shameless lack of attention to guilt. There is no guilt for a little extra wine tonight. No guilt that the noise level of our chatter is about to raise the roof.  And, to those who may not have actually read the book, no guilt from the righteous few that just might have. There is no guilt for not finding elegant words to describe why you liked or disliked the book.  And mostly no guilt for the fact that with such great cooks in this group we eat way too much tonight.

We could be called the Really Great Cooks Group. But that would cut out the experiences gained through books. Where the authors transport us emotionally, physically or historically. We may not talk about them much during the evening, but these books are a shared world that we journey through.

Maybe in the next year or two we’ll write our own adventure story. We’ll call it No Guilt in France.   (Assuring our abandoned families that the guilt will arise from any especially untoward behavior.)

Maybe others of you want to join in on that one. Keep tuned in for opportunities to be had in the small village of Bourdeilles.  I plan to be organizing week-long adventures in our region of France for women’s groups (whether well-read or not).