The Invitation
On vulnerability, friendship and the love of a good book
Welcome back to The Liminal Space! It’s been a few months since instalments. Between navigating the selection process for Startmate’s Summer21 cohort, navigating the liminal space that is an interstate relocation and the end-of-year holiday period and celebrating the first birthday of my little girl, I haven’t had as much reflection and creation time as I would have liked. But I have been writing! You can catch up on some of the things I have been working on at Startmate here.
In March 2015, I sent an email to a short list of women I admired to extend an invitation:
I have had an idea for a different kind of book club, and wanted to invite you all to be a part of it - it's called the 'What are you reading?' book club and the premise is very simple!
Instead of all reading the same book and coming together for pseudo-intellectual discussion that doesn't really amount to much (interspersed with the fact that no-one has really finished, or even picked up, said book...) and becomes more of a stress than anything, a group of awesome ladies get together to share a little bit about a book they are either currently reading or have just finished. This way we either get to feel like we've read the books, or get some recommendations for what to read next!
Of the women I emailed, some knew each other, others were connected by one or two degrees separation, but the only common link across all of them was me, hovering in liminal space between professional acquaintance and social connection. Each person had been chosen because I knew that not only would they want to have a fun time, but that they would actually bring their A-Game with interesting and diverse books (and over time podcasts, articles and TV series as well. See below: the child-bearing years 😂 ) and that each would find the others as interesting as I knew them to be.
Our first meeting took place in the coworking space some of us shared (that happened to be run by my husband Josh). Everyone turned up on time, and we sat on Ikea stools around the long table in the kitchen (which was actually a salvaged strip of flooring from a basketball court), Duralex glasses filled with wine in hand and snacks in front of us. And one by one, we went around the table and shared, simply, what we had been reading, getting to know each other better in the process. And at the end of it we all agreed that, yes, we might just like to do this again.
It all sounds so simple in retrospect, like an expected or obvious outcome. But I remember feeling filled with butterflies, the fluttering of responsibility for the success of the evening. I had extended an invitation, these women had shown trust in accepting it and I wanted them to walk away with something valuable - not just a new book recommendation, but a new connection and a network of like-minded people they could plug into again any time. As we graduated from the after-hours office space to each other’s living rooms and dining tables, it becomes harder to remember a time before we shared book notes together.
Six years later, we have had more than 20 different people drop into the group from time to time, or stay for a season, but a core group of seven women has held fast throughout the time. Between us, we have welcomed eleven babies (!!), celebrated marriages, rallied around at the end of relationships, offered support and strength in the face of family illness, the death of parents and the tragic loss of one of our own original members. We’ve had integral members move overseas and start international WAYR outposts (and eventually boomerang back to Australia), we’ve navigated redundancies and come out on top in incredible new roles. We’ve bought, sold, renovated and moved houses, and have ultimately almost all left Sydney in our wake, scattering to regional towns up and down the eastern seaboard — from Noosa to Newcastle, Orange to Cradoc, Tas (with a pitstop in Melbourne in between!). From monthly catchups to annual book club retreats to an immortal Whatsapp group that keeps the thread of our connection alive.
We still talk about books.
But we also talk about so much more.
Friendship is a relationship with no strings attached except the ones you choose to tie, one that’s just about being there, as best as you can.
How Friendships Change in Adulthood by Julie Becker, The Atlantic
Forming friendships in life is hard. For most of us, they are primarily cultivated cultivate amidst the more formative periods of school age and young adulthood, where things are so much more heightened and interdependent — a constant tension between the identity and harmony of the group and the evolving sense of self. (If you’re lucky, these friendships are unshakeable and have a place of their own in our lives, with a protective force field earned over sheer time and shared experience.)
Forming or deepening friendships in the thirties is harder still. Competing priorities of career and family naturally deprioritise time and investment in friendships, all while the importance of having people who see you as separate to the other identities (mother, lawyer, CEO, wife etc) you layer on over time only increases. In my book club, I have found a zone of genuine support, encouragement and care, free of judgement or expectation - resilient in the face of busy-ness, impervious to neglect. I am constantly grateful for the role these women play in my life, whether individually, or just through knowing the fact the group chat can sit dormant for weeks and then explode spontaneously in wide-ranging conversation as we catch up on the lot, plotting our next get-together while navigating the borders that now separate us.
Why am I sharing this? While telling you how wonderful my book club women are feels like reason enough (there is a reason they make movies about book clubs), what I’m actually reflecting on is the gap that might exist in my life if I hadn’t sent that email six years ago. Would I have six wonderful individual friendships but miss out on seeing the power of the collective? Would we have gravitated to each other anyway? Would I have joined someone else’s book club and be forced to read a specific novel month after month? I shudder to think.
In a similar way, I wonder what might have happened if I had never built the courage to start writing here. I’m only early in my writing journey, but every time I press publish I feel a sense of completion to my own thoughts as well as the jittery tension of wondering exactly how and where what I’ve shared might strike a chord. The vulnerability in putting something out there, just like my invitation to book club years ago, is half the reward. And so I ask, when did you last put something out there? Your invitation is waiting to be received. ❤️
These pieces I write become part of my ongoing narrative, stakes in the ground that mark the funny milestones where I said to the thoughts in my head, “Alright, that’s enough running around in there – it’s time to come outside.”
Thanks for taking the time to read these thoughts of mine. I have made it a goal to continue growing The Liminal Space this year, so on that note, if this did resonate with you, I would love to hear it. Better still, if you think someone else might enjoy what I have to share, please send this email their way. 🙏
TECH
“I believe the most important part of privilege is not that you are always safe or wealthy - it means that you often have the benefit of making decisions with an emphasis on maximizing upside as opposed to minimizing the downside.” The New Career Stack
ECONOMY
“A widening gap. A gap between the “haves” and the “have nots,” between those with disposable income and those that don’t have jobs. A gap between fact and fiction, between those that have access to the truth and those that are fed lies non-stop. A gap that’s been exacerbated by the pandemic, certainly, but also by the forces of technology, media, and politics, not just in the last four years, but for the past decade.” From Nikhil Basu Trivedi’s Next Big Thing
THE HUMAN CONDITION
“When you have gotten to a place of true depth with someone before, then the really cool thing about frequency is that it doesn’t matter how much time has passed, you can pick back up where you left off. That is an experience many people want, you know? That is the sign of a very resilient friendship.” On the 4 Seeds of Connection in Building Deeper Friendships with Kat Vellos, Masters of Community podcast
“Perhaps one of the paradoxical benefits of the internet, in the long term, is shifting the way we think about peer relationships from ‘opt-out’, which it’s been since pretty much forever, towards ‘opt-in.’” Secrets About People
Love your thoughts and writing. Inspired to write more and rejoin a book club where we are allowed to read different things!
As a keen reader, I've always loved the idea of being part of a great book club but it hasn't happened, or I haven't made it happen yet. I like your approach and your reflections on what makes it special. Thank you for sharing it.