The Roncesvalles Quiet Book Club #5
On this photo, I am literally crying after meeting someone for the first time in person. I am also wearing pants that everybody seems to like. They look surprised when I tell them they’re pyjama pants from Dollarama!
Ngl, I'm struggling to write this one. The Roncy QBC #5 was May 5!
The Roncesvalles Quiet Book Club is now a month old (I launched it on April 7), and I didn't realize it until I got back home, my eyes still wet. Yesterday was emotionally intense. I needed a minute.
It was supposed to rain this Tuesday morning in Roncy, but it didn't. I'd slept a lot the day before, but I was not feeling rested. I left home at 8:55 AM, my QBC box covered by the same plastic grocery bag just in case it started raining.
On my way to SAVA Crepes & Coffee, a car started to turn onto the street I wanted to cross. But because there was a crossing guard, I decided to cross before that car turned, and even the crossing guard seemed to hesitate — it looked like that car had been there before me (it definitely had). I stepped onto the street and the crossing guard joined me. Just like Trey Songz, the car couldn't help but wait. I started running because I still felt that I was in the wrong!
ME (to the crossing guard): Thank you! I don't know the rule.
An older yt lady across the street who had seen the whole scene answered: "The rule is that as soon as he's on the zebra crossing, traffic has to stop until you finish crossing the street."
ME (half convinced): D'accord!
THE LADY: Ah vous parlez français !
ME: Sh!t, I spoke French again, didn't I?
We were walking next to each other pretty fast. She was walking her dog, and I was trying to catch the next traffic light and arrive early at the café. Which is also why I didn't even acknowledge the dog once (something that never happens).
THE LADY: Je ne suis pas bilingue, mais mes enfants sont à l'immersion francophone. My husband is a bit of a Francophone though.
I didn't try to understand what "a bit of a Francophone" would be like and congratulated her in English:
ME: It's good that you know you're not bilingual. Not everyone knows that.
Wait, was that passive agressive? I couldn't tell either.
THE LADY: So tell me, where are you from?
I can't remember how she phrased it, but she wanted to know the true story, the "real" country. So I told her what I usually tell anyone, even the ones who are fine with the fake countries.
ME: I was born and raised in Cameroon, but I spent most of my life in France. And you?
THE LADY: I'm from here.
Sure. We got to the traffic light right in time to cross the street. She was turning left on Fermanagh, I was staying on Roncy. She said:
THE LADY: You're carrying a Monoprix bag, so I figured you were from France.
I gasped, speechless. Of course! And before I could say anything, she wished me a good day and kept walking with the unpetted good dog.
I arrived at SAVA and met the employees I'm used to seeing there (who are not the ones who worked there last week). I was happy to see them again. The cook waved at me from the kitchen, I waved back. After some greetings in Japanese with M., the Japanese front-desk employee, I started setting up my table in the center of the café. M. asked me how many people I was expecting. Good question. I'm never expecting anything, and every time I get a confirmation email from Eventbrite, I ignore it. Maybe it's a source of stress I'm trying to avoid, I dunno. But I remembered seeing in my Gmail account that I had received 5 emails from Eventbrite. So I said 5. Little did I know that those people had booked 2 tickets each.
Chris was the first to arrive and sat at their regular table. I can't remember when a South Asian man came in, but his table was behind Chris's. I assumed he wasn't there for the book club because there's a sign on my table and he didn't necessarily look for me. Then Ann, a new face, came in, saw the sign on my table, and introduced themself. I spontaneously started dancing! A happy dance to celebrate.
ME: It's completely improvised, but let's make it a tradition. Every time someone joins for the first time, I'll dance a welcome dance. I hope you enjoyed yours, because that won't happen again!
ANN: I did!
ME: Are you here to read or write?
ANN: I'll read and maybe do some crochet as well?
ME: Oh, crochet! That's new!
ANN: A friend is joining me.
I gave Ann a quote and vocabulary card and explained that they should write new words or concepts on that card, and a quote that stood out to them during the session. I told them to sit wherever they wanted (except at my table), and they sat right behind me. Then Buffy arrived and sat at their usual spot next to Chris. Then Alex arrived and sat with Ann, which is also Alex's regular table (y'all! We all have our regular tables by now!). Alex pulled out two novels, this time again, two new ones: THE REFORMATORY by Tananarive Due and KING LEOPOLD'S GHOST (yes, THE King Leopold, brrr) by Adam Hochschild.
After Alex, two new faces arrived. I didn't get their names because I was a bit overwhelmed by then, but let me check the sign-up sheet: Savi and Gus.
Savi came to write some applications, and Gus came to do some free writing and read STONE BUTCH BLUES by Leslie Feinberg. I danced for them too — a tradition is a tradition, even though it started 5 minutes ago. They asked where they were supposed to sit.
ME: Wherever you want.
Alex told them there were still two seats at Chris and Buffy's table. As a loner, I felt threatened: what if togetherness became a thing and I didn't get to be alone anymore? So I chimed in:
ME: Or you can sit by yourselves at those empty tables if you prefer being alone. I know I do!
They found an empty table a little way away from us and sat there together. Then Ann's friend arrived, and I didn't connect the dots. I didn't anticipate the fact that Ann would want to sit with their friend! So Ann had to switch tables and leave Alex alone. Alex apologized even though I felt responsible.
Maybe I should start opening those emails from Eventbrite so I know that when the regulars book their tickets, I should keep their seats available for them! Anyway, it ended up being no big deal. Ann switched tables and sat next to us with their friend Zahra, who came and introduced themself to me. Zahra had brought ON BEAUTY by Zadie Smith (which I read during the pandemic).
Ann and Zahra enjoying sweet time on Earth
I was busy on my iPhone trying to find a leftist land acknowledgement for Toronto on Google, but everything that came up was yt people complaining about land acknowledgements. I need to write one by next Tuesday.
It was very chatty in the café: QBC participants were ordering their breakfasts, catching up with their friends, and we were dramatically approaching silence time. I shouted a welcome, several thank-yous to the donors, the venue, the participants, including one to the Indigenous people whose stolen land we were on, and some instructions.
Buffy spilled their tea on the table and on their tablet. The cook in the kitchen reacted quickly and came over with napkins. I was worried about blisters and kept telling Buffy to go put some soap on their fingers (who cares about some water on the floor?). Buffy was busy mopping up the spilled tea with a stack of paper towels, ignoring my soap tips. I used the washrooms for the first time, Chris was the one who told me where to find them.
9:30 AM. Still chatty in there. At first, I expected people to look at the time and self-discipline themselves into monastic silence. But nah.
At 9:34 AM, I had to raise my voice and invite everyone to shut the fuck up (I didn't say "fuck," but I sure meant it), and it actually felt great. It's something I've been meaning to say at every bar, every movie theatre, every social gathering... An autistic person walks into a bar and shouts, "Everyone, just shut the fuck up!" Ah… better.
Alex always brings two books
So we got the silence and started reading and writing quietly. I realized I hadn't taken pictures of people's books and food, so I did real quick during those first seconds of quiet. I didn't order anything, not after my disastrous appointment with WoodGreen Employment Services the day before (hence the ultra-long sleep to escape reality). Brokity-broke. I just kept writing my play from where I had left off the week before. With earplugs AND music this time (bone conduction).
At 10:45 AM, the alarm went off. Alex kept reading (end of a novel, do not disturb, it can be intense, it's like grieving a whole world, I get it); Chris and Buffy resumed their chat; I joined Ann and Zohra and we talked for a bit, about crochet and Ah Sissi, il faut souffrir pour être française. Then, when I looked to my right at the table where Gus and Savi had chosen to sit, I realized they were gone.
No trace of their glasses of milk tea, no bag on the seats, nothing. They had vanished. I didn't see them leave, and I was a bit bummed by it. I hoped they had enjoyed the session nevertheless and that I'd get to hear about STONE BUTCH BLUES one day!
It was hard for me to be with everyone (that's why I only ever have one guest over at a time), and we were not even that many people. The South Asian man was still there, and a painter had joined him. He had brought several canvases with him and was trying to decide which ones to put up on which wall.
I told Ann and Zohra about one of my favorite YouTube channels, Art History School, and the two episodes I had watched the night before, about Claude Monet and Dorothea Tanning.
Paintings by Don Osborne
The painter's name is Don Osborne, a yt dude in his fifties, I'd say (although he looked like a 65yo). He had paintings of trees on the floor, leaning against the South Asian man's table. I liked them alright. When Ann pointed out that another painting of his was on the wall, I looked up and liked it very much: a man in a suit, seen from behind, wearing a hat, smoking a cigar and drinking alone at a bar.
DON: It's a self-portrait. That's how I see myself. Although I've never smoked in my life and I don't own a hat.
That intrigued me and I realized: "Funny. That's how I see myself too. But I don't smoke either, and you'll never see me at a bar." (Unless I'm allowed to shout "Everybody, shut tf up". Obviously.)
Don seemed fun, I liked his energy. But while I was talking to him, I was adamantly avoiding eye contact with the man next to him. Don told me that the owner of the café had been kind enough to let him put up his paintings. That was my first clue, because I knew that the owner of the café, whom I had never seen, not even in pictures, had a South Asian name. But it couldn't be the man who had been sitting there in silence all morning, could it? I didn't want to find out. I had a telephone appointment at noon and a Zoom meeting at 1:00 PM, and I kept checking the time.
Alex was deep in her novel, Buffy and Chris were deep in conversation. I took Ann's and Zahra's quote and vocabulary cards and read them out loud while wondering why Gus and Savi had left without saying goodbye.
I read On Beauty in 2021, and I was like, “Han! And here I thought I understood English.”
I started with Zahra's book: ON BEAUTY by Zadie Smith. It taught us new words that Zohra took the liberty of looking up, and they wrote the meanings on the QVC! Chris explained to Zahra that we usually try to guess the meanings together, and I was touched. Not only do we have our usual seats, but we also have our usual way of going through the quote and vocabulary cards. Isn't it beautiful?
Anyway, here are the words Zahra brought up: "hovel", "Perspex" and "gamine". I recognized "gamine" from French (a little girl, sometimes pejorative), but I was curious whether it could mean something else, or something more. Here's what the Merriam-Webster Dictionary has to say:
HOVEL (n.): 1) an open shed or shelter 2) (religion) see TABERNACLE 3) a small, wretched, and often dirty house
GAMINE (n.): 1) a girl who hangs around in the streets 2) a small, playfully mischievous girl
GAMINE (adj.): of, relating to, or suggesting a gamine
PERSPEX (trademark): used for an acrylic plastic
Ann listened to the audiobook SEIZE THE NIGHT by Dean Koontz and explained that it was the second book in a trilogy. I tried to say it in Latin ("Carpe... noche"?), but I failed miserably. The new word that stood out to Ann was a proper noun: Chichen Itza. I pointed out that it reminded me of Chicken Pizza. But no, Chichen Itza is a major ancient Maya city in Mexico! But I bet they would've added pineapple to their pizzas.
Ann also wrote down a quote — actually two (yay, I haven't had a quote in so long!). I asked them if they wanted to read them to the group and they didn't mind:
First quote:
"How fortunate I'd been to live long enough to recognize the subtle but undeniable fading of my youthful stamina and spryness."
(I would've added "spryness" to MY vocabulary card.)
Second quote:
"We are most alive and closest to the meaning of our existence when we are most vulnerable."
I loved both quotes, as a big fan of nineteenth-century Romanticism and topics such as the passage of time and the vanity of life.
I went to see M., the front-desk employee, and managed to tell her in Japanese:
"I don't have any money today, that's why I won't buy any tart."
The secret message came through. M. said my Japanese was really good. I replied that Japanese- and Portuguese-speaking people were easily impressed when someone spoke two words of their language, whereas the French would expect you to know every word in the dictionary before acknowledging that you speak French.
I went back to clear my table and saw the South Asian man going behind the cashier. There was no more doubt: that fly on the wall was the owner, P. Had I by any chance met someone even shyer than me? I walked up to him to introduce myself and when he told me his name, I heard what I had both dreaded and hoped to hear.
ME: Well, P., I'm hugging you mentally.
All of a sudden, time froze and I was overwhelmed with gratitude, and I just wanted to be in my bedroom and cry out all my emotions in peace, away from witnesses. My tears didn't wait for me to arrive home, I cried in front of P.. I spent the rest of the afternoon in a weird funk. Happy tears are still tears, and that happiness and gratitude tapped into some sadness as well, sadness that I couldn't explain or justify… It was really intense.
But before I left the café, I spent about ten minutes trying to make every item from my QBC box fit back into it (I hadn't brought any bag except the plastic grocery bag covering it in case of rain). It was as if everything but the box had doubled in size! So annoying. Alex left first, then I left, and everyone else stayed behind. As usual. I like how we now have our usual things.
I'm a bit scared of how popular or crowded QBC can get, it's daunting, I'm still an introvert. But I do feel grateful for everyone who shows up. So grateful. As my therapist always says: "It can be both."
The end.
#roncesvalles#roncesvallesvillage#funnybrainyroncy
This post was first published on Facebook on May 6, 2026.
All the books mentioned here can be ordered on anotherstory.ca or borrowed from the Toronto Public Library.
Book a free spot at the next Roncesvalles Quiet Book Club here (donations are welcome): https://www.eventbrite.ca/manage/events/1986008762671/