Most people I know make fitness resolutions and vow to hit the gym. My husband has his gym code taped to the fridge “just in case” he gets the urge. It has hung there like an albatross around his neck for six years. Thankfully the gym resolution isn’t one I have to make because I’m already committed. Why? Because I need that time to myself? Because I’m deeply vain? Well, yes, but more importantly, because there’s a woman with a six-pack of muscle and enthusiasm that even Tony Horton would envy. Her name is Jodie Kofod and she kicks my ass every Tuesday and Thursday morning. I don’t know what would happen if I don’t show up (beyond transforming into a manatee). But one thing is for sure, I don’t want to disappoint her.

Would you risk disappointing her? No, I think not.

My Trainer, My Love

To call her my trainer is a little like referring to the woman at the Wendy’s drive-thru as my personal chef. I have no ownership over Jodie; she belongs to anyone willing to step foot into her class at the YMCA, aptly titled “Iron Bodies.” I do not have an iron body, but for the past six years I’ve been steadily developing an aluminum body—a measurement determined by the fact that my inner thighs no longer touch (by a hair’s width, but I swear I see daylight).

Over the years, Iron Bodies has become a permanent fixture in my life. It’s a non-negotiable 75-minute appointment between my metabolism and me. I run on the other days, fueled by the fact that I’m going to spend two and a half hours a week standing in front of a wall of mirrors, lunging, squatting and planking my well to a buildup of lactic acid.

It’s Not (Entirely) About the Burn—or the Buns

The workout is kind of beside the point. I truly enjoy the gym goers in the class—mostly stay-at-home moms working to elevate the muffin top into a MILF top. They accept me in my sleep-deprived, pre-concealer state. We’ve seen each other at our worst—post-baby, divorce, illness and loss—and at our best—albeit sometimes post surgery. No one is too cool for fitness school. I’ve seen shorts rip, thongs exposed and bands snapped. If I don’t show up for class without excusing myself on Facebook the night before, my phone blows up with texts. I attend to my backside, but these girls got my back. Even the ladies in the childcare still ask about my daughter’s stuffed monkey “Muh,” as if calling on a sick uncle. Most family isn’t this nice.

A typical Tuesday

But the true source of inspiration to get up twice a week and look like a dying cockroach while performing R-rated inner thigh moves, is Jodie herself. Coffee and Red Bull course through her veins. She shouts when she talks and shakes when she tries to stand still, her body unsure of why she’s resting between sets. She has never had an off day, or maybe her off days look a lot better than mine. She gives 110% to a roomful of half-asleep, middle-aged women (and one token male). As she screams “Wooooooo!” and explodes into a series of one-armed pushups, we stare at her in vacant wonder; we’re just trying to keep our faces from colliding with the floor.

Jodie is one of the most intimidating and inspiring people I’ve ever met. She’s intimidating because her small frame can barely contain her super-sized personality and because she could crack walnuts between her butt cheeks. She’s inspiring because she cares so much for the health and wellbeing of everyone around her. She gives so much of herself to her work, son, husband, church and even her St. Bernard. Spend just a couple of minutes getting to know her and you’ll discover that her iron body is really just the exoskeleton to a very soft and sensitive center. (Me, on the other hand, I’m all endoskeleton.)

Good trainers, like good schoolteachers, don’t get enough credit. They endure our sudden water breaks (always during pushups) and our complaints about how we aren’t losing weight (as we wield 2-pound weights and gnaw on 750-calorie energy bars). And here we are getting so much in return from their commitment to us. If you have a Jodie in your life, be sure to thank her for making fitness one less thing to commit to in 2012, ‘cause you’re already there.

As for me, I’ll again refocus on eating healthier. Now, about that lady at Wendy’s . . .

"My" Jodie and me

It was not my daughter’s book. It wasn’t her bedroom. In fact, we weren’t even in our own house.

Ava and I were staying for an uncertain length of time at our friends’ Michael and Nicole’s home just 10 minutes away. Earlier that day they had traveled with their children, 9 and 14, to Atlanta when Michael passed out at the American Girl store. (It’s okay, you can laugh; he’s all right now, we just weren’t sure at the time.) He was rushed to the ER. Our friends are transplants to the South and don’t have family to call on, but they do have us. And having fixed us a fabulous Christmas Eve dinner, I guess we owed them. So when Nicole asked if Ray could drive to Atlanta to get the kids and bring them home so she could focus on the situation at hand, he hopped in the car without a second thought (I mean, it was a really good dinner).

But let’s rewind to Christmas morning.

It was our second Christmas alone. Ever. We didn’t have the money to fly home to our families so we raked up our sorry-for-ourselves feelings and tried to make the best of it. It was working, right up until the wee hours of Christmas morning when I suddenly woke to my throbbing upper lip, or what used to be my upper lip and was now a suitable perch for a barn owl. By sunrise, it had grown so large it could sustain a flock of seagulls. Better yet, the Flock of Seagulls, their groupies and a touring bus.

I lay in bed considering the possibilities. On Christmas Eve, I thought I might be getting a cold sore, but this was clearly so much more. Flesh-eating virus came to mind. How inconvenient.

I woke my husband and told him that we might as well enjoy our last Christmas together, or at the very least, my last Christmas with this particular lip.

“What are you talk—” he rolled toward me and opened his eyes, “Whoa!”

Yeah. About that.

As our daughter merrily tore through her Christmas stocking, I drank my coffee through a straw and felt bitterly sorry for myself quarantined and alone on Christmas Day. I dodged Ray’s picture taking even as he tried to convince me that the size of my lip “didn’t translate two-dimensionally.” Apparently he was lying because when I Skyped my mother she shielded her face with her hands and yelled, “Oh my God! Dad, come here! Quick! Look at Andrea’s face!” Dad and Mom gawked and pointed in horror like I was a legless giraffe at the zoo.

“It’s spreading up the side of your face!”

It wasn’t; makeup just wasn’t a priority that morning. But thanks.

Clearly, it was bad. But it was going to have to wait. It was Christmas, after all. And more than that, even my dermatologist couldn’t see me like this.

Things improved moderately overnight. I went from circus freak to Botox gone horribly wrong. We had just gotten the call from Nicole, so I knew I would have to venture outside sooner or later. There I encountered my neighbors and quickly acknowledged the elephant woman in the room.

“Ray got me lip injections for Christmas.” Cue the recoil.

“Just kidding. I have a lip funk.” They laughed, somehow comforted with the thought of a communicable disease over restylane. Clearly I played this right.

Sure, they dispersed moments later, citing a variety of made-up errands. I couldn’t blame them. Survival of the fittest. And I was not fit for public consumption.

All the same, I had things to do. I had our friends’ children to care for. When they arrived, they kindly averted their eyes and never mentioned my lip until two days later when the swelling mercifully subsided.

“What happened anyway?” the 14-year-old asked.

Christmas happened. Somewhere between my over-inflated lip and the rush to our friends in need, the holiday spirit swept through virtually unnoticed.

Or maybe not.

Maybe I need to heed Stillwater’s Zen wisdom. All this bad luck was actually good luck in disguise. I didn’t spend Christmas “alone.” I spent it with a husband willing to drive ten hours to help our friends, friends willing to trust us with their children and home, and my daughter willing to believe the whole thing was one big adventure.

And the lip? Well, if I had gone home for Christmas I inevitably would’ve run into 50 people I went to high school with who would then permanently fix the vision of my lip into their collective memory and forever refer to me as the girl who “used to be pretty.”

Thank you, giant panda, for a memorable Christmas.

Yeah, I BET you wanted to see a picture of my lip.

Glad you're boosting the economy. Glad I'm in bed.

There was a time when I’d wake the day after Thanksgiving at 5 AM to drive 90 miles to Seattle to shop. But two things were different then: I didn’t have a child (and thus, complete respect for sleep), and the sales began at 7 AM, which was considered early.

These days, “early” is actually “late.” Most major stores opened at midnight, while the big daddies sprung their doors at 10 PM for “doorbuster sales.” The prices are good if you’re in the market for an off-brand TV or a Dora bicycle, but there’s no guarantee that you’re actually going to get one of these because you and three thousand other people with a dream are clamoring for limited stock. The stores don’t really care if you get what you came for. All they need is to get you in the door, then they can tempt you with the things no human being needs: a chair massage pad or an Orbeez Soothing Spa (you know you’re curious). And because you can’t leave a store at 3 AM empty handed, you impulse buy a zoo’s worth of pint-sized Pillow Pets.

And then there are the inevitable fights that break out. Who’s surprised by that? People have spent the past 12 hours cooking and listening to their relatives debate the difference between sweet potatoes and yams and then, tired and probably a little bit drunk, these same people line up outside Walmart in the middle of the night prepared to do battle in the name of Christmas. Some fool brings pepper spray for some crowd control and the rest belongs to Thanksgiving legend.

That said, when heartburn stirred me from my turkey-induced coma around 4 AM, I admit that I felt as if I was missing out on something by choosing sleep over sales—that “something” being a 30-percent discount on the Victorious Doll Ava covets. But the feeling only lasted until I rolled over to discover that my daughter had sneaked into my bed and was fast asleep, all cherubic and satisfied. I happily conceded my $5.99. Victorious would have to wait until another day, another sale.

I did go shopping for a couple of hours with my mom this Black Friday morning, but only after we enjoyed a leisurely breakfast and cup of coffee. I avoided the ads and commercials altogether and instead stumbled upon a few deals, making me feel as if I really found something.

I didn’t want to know what I was missing. Instead, I focused on what I was gaining.

I’m running to train for the Savannah Rock ‘n’ Roll half marathon. I’m in the last few weeks of my training program and so far so good. Well, mostly good. I’ve been experiencing bouts of the “runner’s trots” around mile six. Don’t let the name fool you—it’s not a technical term for a cool-down jog. On the contrary, the runner’s trots have me making mad dashes for cover in whatever form it make take: house, tree or—please forgive me God—headstone. But that’s another story, and probably one I won’t write about for fear of being arrested. Just know this: when you have the runner’s trots, nothing else matters. So stay clear.

The first two months of my training program I’d run on the treadmill watching “E! News” or old episodes of “Friends” turned up to Metallica-concert decibels. The few times I ventured outside, I’d shove earbuds into my brain and keep pace with Gwen Stefani’s lyrical assurance that I’m “F-ing Perfect.” But I wasn’t perfect. Far from it. My runs were crummy at best. Afterwards, I’d collapse into the car, cue up Adele to mourn my imperfect run, and drive home to my husband and child who greeted me as if they’d been abandoned because God forbid Mom disconnects for an hour—a greeting which was always followed by: “What’s for dinner?”

Of course, I wasn’t disconnecting. Not really. The noise in my ears was drowning out the noise in my head—the stuff I desperately needed to tend to.

“I don’t run with music,” my friend’s father told me. “It’s my time to think.”

Running without music sounded as ridiculous as running without a sports bra, and equally as painful. But if there’s one thing I know, it’s to listen to experienced runners; their race division isn’t called “Masters” for nothing. My friend’s dad wins races. He’s been running his whole life and he probably never gets the trots. I run in cycles. I lose interest. I burn out.

So I decide to heed his advice and put down my iPod. Turn of the TV. I go outside and I run 10 miles, five of which are through a cemetery that is literally dead quiet. It’s not easy. In fact, by the last mile it feels as if someone is hammering ice picks into my knees. But it’s quiet.

I hadn’t realized how loud my life had become. I wake to an alarm or my 5-year-old standing over me like a poltergeist begging to play Barbies at 5 AM. I fall asleep to “The Daily Show.” During the day I listen to my chatty daughter who thinks she speaks Spanish (she doesn’t) and a husband whose head is filled with useless trivia he’s desperate to share: “Did you know that early civilizations had no concept of zero?” No. And I’m little cooler because of it.

For the first few minutes of my quiet run I don’t think I can make it 500 yards let alone 13.1 miles. Then a mile goes by and my suffering gives way to thoughts about my upcoming race, work and even writing. Then I drift into thoughts about my goals, my family and my place in this world. I hear my breath and I feel my pace. Somewhere along the way I even decide to sign up for a marathon. And by the last mile I do nothing more than feel every muscle in my aching body cry as I slap the pavement with my size nines. For the first time in a long while, I feel present. In tune and in pain, but present nonetheless.

This time when I greet my family, I’m grateful for the chatter. I’m grateful for them. I may be physically running on empty, but I’m spiritually refueled.

Now I run from the noise. And I run for myself.

As we grow older, I think it becomes more and more important to nurture our oldest friendships—the ones from the single-digit days. These are the friends who held the other end of the jump rope. The ones who helped you chase down boys that you liked just so you could kick them in the balls. The ones who remember—all too vividly—your self-choreographed dance routine to publicly profess your love to a boy named “Jimmy”  (P.S. Jimmy didn’t love you back).

Which brings me to my friends from the Sunnyland Elementary days. Angie’s house was just across the freeway from mine. I can remember her telling me about the ghost that lived in her house (it did) and that she was going to name her first child “Mercedes.” We spent hours making home movies with a camcorder the size of a microwave and practicing to become high school cheerleaders (we didn’t). Somewhere around middle school Angie and I drifted apart and into different circles of friends but whenever I visit my hometown and bump into her, I feel somehow complete. Like I’ve come home to . . . myself.

We got together this past summer with another childhood friend, Mojan. Mojan was visiting from her new home in Israel. We had met in 4^th grade when her family moved from California and became instant friends: long, lanky, studious girls who enjoyed their co-roles as teacher’s pet. I’ve always regarded Mojan as a better version of myself. Every word she speaks is articulate and thoughtful, while I stutter and laugh nervously, my eyes lolling around the room trying to find the right thing to say. She’s profoundly genuine and graceful. If I didn’t pass gas, slouch, or make fun of people so much, I imagine I’d be more like Mojan (alas, I’m not willing to make this compromise—or maybe I’m just not capable).

It had been over a decade since I’d seen Mojan. In that time she lived in various places around the world, got married and had two beautiful boys. But she hadn’t changed. Not really. When I hugged her I got a handful of her thick, curly hair—the kind of hair that could dry up a fountain like a super-sized chamois—and it transformed me back to a happily naïve, pig-tailed ten-year-old with teeth too big for my head. We had traveled so much distance in twelve years and yet there we were, standing in a place we never really left.

These earliest friends paved the way for my most cherished friendships that I fostered as a teenager. Today, my three best friends are present in my life in spite of being thousands of miles away. They are the kind of friends you call 24-hours after you’ve had your first baby and say, “I can’t do this,” and ten hours later, they’ve traveled 3,000 miles to come to my rescue. They’ve seen my ugly square-mouth cry. They’ve looked me in the eye and said, “I love you. And you’re being stupid.” And they’ve been right every time.

At 34, I’m not really looking for friends, yet I keep meeting women who challenge and inspire me; perhaps they are tomorrow’s “forever friends.” I credit those earliest friendships with all the subsequent lasting ones. Because when I’m with my oldest and bestest friends, I’m reunited with my best self. Sure we change houses, jobs and cities. We marry, maybe divorce and have children. But my childhood friends remind me that we don’t really change as much as we’d like to think. And maybe that’s okay.

I’ve been especially sensitive about my bloat since visiting my family. When you’re of childbearing age and haven’t seen your family in six months, the first thing they do is swiftly graze their eyes over your abdomen, just to see if you’re hiding any secrets. Usually one glance is enough. But this year, I feel the eyes linger. There are checks and double checks. Every time I begin a sentence with “Guess what?” my parents lean in with genuine interest.

I figured that my mother-in-law’s Midwestern cooking—where butter doubles as a dipping sauce—was to blame. But I wasn’t really gaining that much weight.

I eventually confided in my best friend because I knew she’d be honest without being hurtful. She’s the kind of friend who tells you a shirt doesn’t fit by insisting it wasn’t made right in the first place.

I lifted up my shirt, revealing my third-trimester bloat.

“Oh, that’s not right, honey.”

Unless you’ve experienced being as bloated as raccoon roadkill on a hot day, you may not think it’s really that big of a deal. Let me assure you it is. First, you trade your skinny jeans for what my husband refers to as “giving up pants”: anything with a drawstring waist. Then you eventually birth your gas baby, which I believe in some states is grounds for divorce.

“Maybe you have a gluten allergy?” she offered. (My best friend lives in Portland, Oregon, where people subsist solely on grass-fed nuts and berries.)

I consulted the online experts—“iDoctors” as I like to call them—and narrowed the cause down to gluten, lactose intolerance, gassy foods (duh) or swallowing air (double-duh). The gluten allergy appealed to me. It’s like a permission slip for an eating disorder. And it seemed pretty easy to regulate: avoid all foods known to humankind, which conveniently includes all gassy foods.

I also carefully considered the possibility that I was swallowing air by gulping down my food. I have noticed that ever since my daughter was born, I eat like it’s a contest. I even “beat” my father-in-law who, as the youngest of three boys, understands Darwinism as survival of the fastest. I’m told I should aim for 20 chews per bite. I was averaging three. So I try this out and discover that after 20 bites, I’ve broken my food into the equivalent of plankton. I don’t even swallow; the food seems to dissipate. No wonder my stomach doesn’t swell. I also discover that it’s a little unappetizing to keep food in your mouth long enough to really consider what you’re eating.

I deflated my belly by slowing down and avoiding all potential offenders for two days. And what do you know? It worked. Eating slower makes me feel fuller faster and even a little bored with eating, which is a first. Another first? Yesterday, my daughter accused me of being a “slowpoke” eater. My stomach returned to it’s Bud-Light belly status—not perfect, but not entirely unlovable either. Then I slowly reintroduced certain foods. Gluten? No problem (and damn). But lactose? Write Goodyear on my belly and fly me over a stadium. Even if I grind my cheddar into tiny curds, it re-inflates internally.

I was lying in bed on my back, suffering from full-fledged contractions when my husband came in.

“What the—?!” he put the back of his hand to his nose and winced.

“I think I’m . . . lactose intolerant,” I said in-between breaths.

How quickly I forget. The next day, I lifted a Mini Babybel cheese to my lips only to have it violently volleyed away by my husband. He’s surprisingly quick.

“You can sleep on the patio,” he threatened.

With this kind of continued spousal support, I guess I can enjoy a bloat-free future.

Last night’s show had an animal theme. One hoarder had over two thousand “pet” rats in his home. The floor was a sea of furry, squeaky vermin. They burrowed themselves into the furniture and drywall. If they got hungry enough, I imagine they’d burrow into the man himself. But he loved each and every one. His hoarding began shortly after his wife passed away. Needless to say, this guy suffered from a real and profound illness.

The doctor assisting in the man’s recovery was the kindest woman.

“I know that these rats are your children and that you love them. That’s why we’re going to give them a better life then this. They deserve that much,” she explained while gently patting the man’s shoulder with one and and stroking a nervous rat with the other.

At the commercial break, my mother-in-law asks the rhetorical question that probably passes through every viewer’s mind: “Can you imagine?”

No. Well, maybe a little.

She must’ve felt the same way because this morning we both decided that it would be a good idea to have a garage sale.

We began collecting items for the sale in my mother-in-law’s bathroom, where I quickly discovered that she has a thing for soap. Glycerin, bar, foam, scented or unscented, with granules or without—you name it, she has a case of it. See, she suffers from an acute case of I-may-need-it-one-day. And she might, if she lives to be 200 and has to wash the inside of an oil tanker. Charlie Sheen doesn’t need this much soap.

“I know that these soaps are like your children and that you really love them . . .” I begin.

Sorting the soap

She made some progress by throwing a couple of hotel soaps into the pile. Then it was my turn.

Visiting some 3,000 miles from home, you’d think we wouldn’t have much to add. I wish that were true. In the eight weeks we’ve been summering at my in-laws’, my husband has bought a dozen 1:18 scale cars. Unless we’re opening up a car lot for Tinkerbell and the gang, I don’t see the point. And my daughter has acquired enough plush animals for an entire Furry convention. Alas, I too, am guilty. I’ve collected 11 pairs of shoes. The difference is that my collection is utilitarian; I wear shoes every day.

“You can’t even walk in those shoes,” my husband said of my new 4-inch platforms I wore to dinner.

I can walk in them; I just look like an inebriated giraffe on roller skates while doing it. Besides, I only fell three times. And only one of those times did I take Ray down with me.

In a fit, Ray declares that I can keep any pair of shoes that I can walk a half-mile in.

I finally agree to toss one pair of old boots in the sale pile (because I have a matching pair back home). There, I feel totally Zen now.

The point is, I’m not a better mother than the one with the kid who throws a tantrum. And I’m not a better person than the rat man. I think there’s a little hoarder in all of us. Maybe we can keep it in check most of the time (or at least behind closet doors), but I’m starting to think it’s a fine line between a few shoes that don’t fit right and 2,000 rats.

But it’s late. I’ll worry about that tomorrow. For now I’ll just crawl into bed and snuggle up to my Kate Spade’s.

I’m not overweight. In carefully selected outfits I even pass for skinny. But once the body shapers and a-line skirts come off, it’s another story. I don’t want to reach my goal weight for the viewing public—chances are I’m not going to become a pole dancer or join the Olympic speed skating team anytime soon. I want to lose it for me.

Losing these last 7 pounds would hardly earn me a guest spot on “The Biggest Loser” or an endorsement deal with Subway. But to me it’s the difference between looking at myself in the mirror and saying, “Oh yeah,” as opposed to “Oh noooo.”  The problem is that I’m so close—just one good stomach virus away.

A woman recently wrote to a fitness magazine complaining that no matter what new exercise routine she tried she could not lose those last five pounds. The fitness expert responded: “Maybe you should just try eating less.” I spin, I lift, I run. I’m fit, but my but still hangs a little on the back of my legs—I have some “mom wings” that ache to be triceps. I just never considered eating less as a solution.

I’ve never missed a meal. No, really. Never. On my wedding day my mother’s advice to my husband was, “Don’t let her get hungry or tired.”  He has created a little mantra that has probably saved our marriage. He says, “Keep her fed and put her to bed.” Like I’m a little Gremlin that you can’t get wet. Apparently I get a little aggressive when the blood-sugar level drops. I’ve learned to carry food with me at all times; I haven’t bitten anyone in years. But because I graze at even the slightest suggestion of hunger, I’m not sure how much I eat over the course of a day. So against my better judgment, I decide to keep track.

Myfitnesspal.com is a site designed to get you to your weight-loss goals. You enter your weight and it calculates how many calories you should eat each day in order to get to your goal. Each day you log in every bite of food. Even the three Reese’s Pieces count for something.

When I started the program, it said that I should aim to consume 1,400 calories per day—the number of calories in a chicken nugget. By noon I had eaten 900 calories, and I still hadn’t fixed lunch. At the end of the day, I was hungrily eyeing my cat as my stomach rolled in pain. For the first time in my life, I was starving. I didn’t have the energy to work out. I didn’t have the energy to blink. The next day, I was ready to write the creators of myfitnesspal.com and complain that they were killing me softly, I discovered that when I logged in my workouts, I could would calories back.

Last night I was running on the treadmill as if being chased by a pack of rabid Twinkies.

“What are you doing?” my husband asked.

“I want a glass of wine.” After the calorie counter read 150, I hopped off and poured a well-earned drink.

It’s embarrassing to acknowledge what you eat. If I want to have a few drinks with the girls, I’m either going to have to skip lunch and dinner or run a marathon to cancel out the calories. These are cold, hard facts that I was comfortable denying for most of my life.

I know what you’re thinking: this may be unhealthy. But before you insist on an intervention, let me tell you that I’ve lost 3 pounds in just one week. I’m more conscious of my eating and I don’t panic at the first sign of hunger, thinking that the world’s food supply may run out before I can get my hands on some string cheese. I don’t plan on logging in my food for the rest of my life, but the process makes me mindful of my eating habits, and in the meantime I’m slowly saying goodbye to the last 7 pounds and hello to the closest thing to near-naked perfection for a mother in her mid-thirties. In a world where you can’t control the weather, the economy, or your child’s insistence on going to her private church school dressed as Cyndi Lauper, a little bit of self-control goes a long way.

I’m not a messy person. I can’t think in a cluttered room and dust bunnies make me dry-heave. After giving birth to my daughter, I began taking Zoloft to prevent an unmade bed or a dirty dish from sending me into a postpartum tailspin. But take one look in any drawer, closet, cupboard or attic in my house, and you’ll see a different side. That is, if the rubble doesn’t topple on you first. (The one exception is my husband’s closet, in which his five shirts hang color-coded.)

My daughter’s closet is the worst. And it’s my fault, since she’s smart enough not to risk opening the door unassisted. It looks like the drop-off station at a Goodwill. To remove a dress from its hanger, I have to first wedge my shoulder between the clothes that are pressed so tightly together, they iron themselves. My darkest hour was when I discovered that red ants built a colony between two shirts. They even had the time and space to develop an intricate highway system. When I pulled the shirts apart, the ants plummeted as if the ground had been pulled out from underneath them. I guess my daughter hadn’t worn those shirts in some time—like, ever.

The Black Hole

I have filled every inch of her closet. It’s crammed with boots, mittens, blankies and rolls of those little scented blue bags that you use to dispose of soiled diapers. Ava has been out of diapers for over two years, but you never know when you’re going to need one. However, retrieving them from under a stack of my daughter’s preschool artwork that I plan to sell at auction one day (you know, when she’s famous) does complicate things a bit. When I ask her what she wants to wear, she just stares into the Black Hole of consumerism, unable to make sense of it all.

Each storage space has its “thing.” The cupboard under the bathroom sink houses every wrinkle-fighting and hair volumizing product known to Woman, thrown in a heap like the emptied shells at a Lowcountry Boil. The attic was once filled with cardboard boxes, just in case I needed to send something in the mail. My husband said that unless I’m sending our child’s clothes to outfit an entire African village, then I needed to recycle them. There were a lot of boxes. As I pulled them out, I built a replica of the Great Wall of China in our livingroom.

I won’t even get into the issue of shoes.

The real problem is that I’m a hoarder of the binge-and-purge variety. I do not have any sentimental attachment to beauty products, cardboard boxes or even my daughter’s clothes. So about once a year, I use my boxes to rid myself of my “collections” and I cart them off to charity. It feels good, this environmental exfoliation. But six months and twenty-four Old Navy sales later, the collections have mysteriously returned.

“I think Ava’s clothes are procreating,” I say to my husband as I lean my body against her closet door, trying to close it.

“I think you have a problem.”

There are closet drinkers, closet eaters and closet Judge Judy watchers. The first step is admitting it. And now I have to do something about it. Today I filled seven boxes, three of which were stuffed with Ava’s clothes and dance leotards. Tomorrow I will tackle the cupboard under the sink, limiting myself to one shampoo and one conditioner for my one head of hair. And in the future I will try to do better.

As I haul the boxes to the car, my husband smiles at me and says, “Is it weird that I find you really hot right now?” And I didn’t even wash my hair.

I see only one of my extended relatives on a semi-annual basis: my mom’s uncle, Bill. I’ve always had a soft spot for him. He’s quiet, kind, 92-years-old and a little bored with it all. He has sported a square Hitler-like mustache for as long as I’ve known him and always orders the “Senior Rooty Tooty” breakfast at IHOP. Uncle Bill is as deaf as a jackhammer operator, so there’s not a lot of conversation, but he seems to appreciate my company and my daughter, even though he’s never heard a damn word she’s ever said.

On the way home from breakfast yesterday, Uncle Bill asked my mom to take a detour into Bayview Cemetery. “I want to show you something,” he said.

Uncle Bill's resting place--but not yet.

He told us where to park and then we all got out of the car and followed him to a headstone. He casually pointed down at it and said, “That’s my grave.”

Sure enough, the headstone was engraved with his deceased wife’s name along with his own name and date of birth. Date of death: “TBD.” It didn’t actually say “TBD,” but seeing that lonely hyphen just dangling there with a sense of expectation, it might as well have.

I broke the awkward silence by yelling, “I didn’t know your name was Maurice,” and then hoped that he didn’t notice my accidental use of the past tense.

“You’re pronouncing it wrong,” Uncle Bill said. “It sounds like ‘Morris.’ But I was such a homely little kid, everyone called me Bill.” Non sequitur, much?

Mom has always been really into family, which makes her kind of an oddity (along with the fact that she’s touchy-feely and sensitive). She decorates the house with ghostly photos of our ancestors and when relatives die, she records the date next to their name in her address book. So when she asked Uncle Bill for a guided tour of the family plots, I knew that I was in for it. I spent the next two hours reading headstones, making sure Uncle Bill didn’t fall into a pothole, and trying to prevent Ava from using the headstones as a dance stage and/or stealing the trinkets left on them (a Barbie Princess horse? Really?). But things got interesting when Uncle Bill took us to his father’s plot. Several other Brooks family relatives were buried there as well, none of which I knew. One was a great-great uncle who died at 28, though even Uncle Bill can’t remember how it happened.

“My grandfather is buried here too, but I think the headstone is hidden under the grass somewhere,” Uncle Bill said nonchalantly. “But no ever believes me.”

The Resurrection of Edson Bean

Just then, a young Parks and Rec worker drove by and asked if we needed help. Mom—a believer—told him about the lost headstone. The guy popped out of the truck with a long, metal probe and asked Uncle Bill where he remembered the headstone being. He pointed to a patch of grass and the Parks and Rec guy drove the probe into the ground three times.

“Pfft, pfft, THWAK!”

Sure enough, there was the headstone. The Parks and Rec guy pulled the cement slab from the ground, brushed it off and placed it on top of the grass. And that’s how “Edson Bean”—Ava’s great-great-great-great-grandfather—came to be resurrected.

“He died in 1888?” asked the Parks and Rec guy. “That was the first year they buried people in this cemetery.” I knew my Bellingham roots ran deep, but I didn’t know they dated back to the Paleolithic era. We stood there in silence for a moment, and tried to wrap our heads around it.

But you can’t. I didn’t even try to explain to Ava why this “park” was filled with so many “sculptures.” I could’ve said it’s how we remember the people we love after they die, but how do I explain away Edson Bean—the guy who rested in an unmarked grave until his 92-year-old grandson happened to mention that he thought he was buried there, and then a Parks and Rec guy happened by, and then my mom spoke up, and then … ?

Serendipity, they call it. Whatever it was, it was three generations of people trying to figure their respective places in this world, in this time, and in this family—and one little 4-year-old who was still so sweetly oblivious to it all for just a bit longer.

Ava rides through the "park."