When my parents' three years were up, they moved back to Houston and sank much of the money they'd made on our old house into a new house just a few blocks away. My mother went to work on the garden, strolled over to visit our old neighbors every afternoon, and continued with her cooking lessons. My dad spent his retirement planning elaborate vacations for the two of them all over the world, though, he promised, they'd never move away again.
Amanda had sat down the same weekend I was in L.A. and typed up a list for herself of things to accomplish in her post-divorce year. It was four pages long, single-spaced, and included things like take tap-dancing lessons, change hair color, go deep-sea diving, learn to ski, have eyebrows tinted, kiss a total stranger, sleep in a tent, and read Heidi to Gracin. By the end of the year, she had only checked three things off the list, but one of them was Heidi. It turned out Amanda was great at reading, and Gracin was great at listening. They curled up under Gracin's comforter in their PJs every night and read until past bedtime. After Heidi, they read James and the Giant Peach, The Cricket in Times Square, and Alice's Adventures in Wonderland. Pretty soon, Gracin's whole bookshelf was full.
As for getting skinny, I never really made it. After all those months of working so hard to bring myself back into my body, after trying so relentlessly to recover that lost version of myself that I couldn't stop mourning, I finally found a stopping place—and settled out at a mom size. Not a high-school-girl size, not a college-girl size, but a mature, woman's, now-I-really-get-it size. I got stronger, and maybe trimmer, but I never actually returned—as I confess I'd been hoping—to my pre-mom self. Which made sense. Because I was not that self anymore, and I was no longer even close to that self. In the end, that was a good thing.
But I kept going to the gym. I established a rhythm—a deeply syncopated one, but nonetheless: an hour at the gym and an hour in the darkroom every weeknight between the kids' bedtime and mine. One hour for my body and one hour for my soul—as if those two things are somehow not the same. Time set aside to strive for that impossible balance between excitement and exhaustion, between longing for and having, between giving yourself away and hanging on to yourself, between how things are and how they ought to be. And then, once a week: I ate my beautiful piece of chocolate cake. And every Saturday: Peter and I hit the town on our hell-or-high-water Date Night.
Really, when I look back on it, I did exactly what I had set out to do. I changed my life. I woke myself up. I rediscovered passions of every variety. I forced myself to take a little time. I found a way to bring some of who I used to be into who I was.
And I took lots of pictures. I haunted parks and accosted women at the post office until I had 103 good ones. I took pictures of Nora and Amanda and the redhead at the gym. I took pictures of grocery checkers and bookstore clerks and women standing on the street corner with polka dot umbrellas. I spent four years taking photos of every woman who caught my eye, and then, in the darkroom we built when Peter moved his office to the university, I developed them.
And here, after all that, is what I have come to believe about beauty: Laughter is beautiful. Kindness is beautiful. Cellulite is beautiful. Softness and plumpness and roundness are beautiful. It's more important to be interesting, to be vivid, and to be adventurous, than to sit pretty for pictures. A woman's soft tummy is a miracle of nature. Beauty comes from tenderness. Beauty comes from variety, from specificity, from the fact that no person in the world looks exactly like anyone else. Beauty comes from the tragedy that each person's life is destined to be lost to time. I believe women are too hard on themselves. I believe that when you love someone, she becomes beautiful to you. I believe the eyes see everything through the heart—and nothing in the world feels as good as resting them on someone you love. I have trained my eyes to look for beauty, and I've gotten very good at finding it. You can argue and tell me it's not true, but I really don't care what anyone says. I have come, at last, to believe in the title I came up with for the book: Everyone Is Beautiful.
For my husband, Gordon Center,
who is the reason I believe so much
in love.
Acknowledgments
Before anything, I have to thank the many people who helped me nurture, feed, and amuse my sweet children while I was writing this second book. My amazing husband, Gordon, has been the King of Dads this year, and I can't thank him enough for all the storytelling, grocery-shopping, and car-washing he's done. And my beautiful mom has been the Grande Dame of Helping Out (tiara is forthcoming)—from meals to sleepovers to taking on any babysitting challenge, she has stepped up time and again. Many hugs to our family friend Maria Cruz—and her beautiful daughters, Mimi, Carmen, and Anna, and to Rebecca (and her handsome son, Daniel) Rios—for countless kindnesses (and pupusas) this year! Thanks also to our ever happy-to-help neighbors Mary and Jeff Harper.
I am also in such awe of my phenomenal agent, Helen Breitweiser, and my brilliant editor at Random House, Laura Ford, who make it all possible. It's an honor and a pleasure to know them. My publicist, Kate Blum, got my first book out there in a big and beautiful way. Robbin Schiff and Julia Kush-nirsky designed the gorgeous cover for this book, and Dana Leigh Blanchette designed the pages. Many thanks also to Libby McGuire, Kim Hovey, Janet Wygal, and Christina Coleman for all their help and support. A special thanks to Christina's aunt Renee for putting together a charm bracelet for me!
Thanks also to the musicians and composers who've educated me about the musical life: Molly Hammond, John Stone, and my dear friend Sam Nichols.
My hometown of Houston is lucky to have a thriving literary community, which has been so great to me this year. Many thanks to Fritz Lanham and the Houston Chronicle, Jane Moser and the folks at Brazos Bookstore, Valerie Koehler and the crew at Blue Willow Bookshop, Rich Levy and Sis Johnson and the good people at Inprint Houston, Robin Reagler and Writers In the Schools, and Greg Oaks and the literary gang at Poison Girl bar.
I have been so grateful this year to meet the Kirtsy chicks: Laura Mayes and her two brilliant friends, Gabrielle Blair of Design Mom and Laurie Smithwick of Leap Design. I also had the great fortune to correspond with Catherine Newman, who posted about my book on her amazing blog, and to become buddies with the fabulous Brené Brown, whose Ordinary Courage blog is a true feast. I wish I could mail hugs of gratitude to the authors who offered blurbs for Bright Side, and all the bloggers and reviewers and readers who have helped spread the word! Thanks, also, to Ben Affleck, who accidentally walked past a reading I gave in L.A., let me give him a book, and then got himself photographed by the paparazzi. Thanks, Ben!
Brett Chisholm took my glamorous author photo and Ryan Rice featured me on his blog. The fabulous Jill Smith designed my snazzy website, and her husband, Wooch Graff, offered great enthusiasm about the book and crucial info about fistfighting. Mike Roberts is a star for all his fast and furious web programming. Gene Graham is a saint for letting me get some writing done at her heartbreakingly lovely hill-country house.
I've been beyond lucky to have so many great people who have helped support my first book: Peter Roussel and the Houston Intown Chamber of Commerce, Susan Bischoff with the Houston Public Library Foundation, First Lady of Houston Andrea White, Jenny Lawson, Susan Lieberman, Liz Sullivan, the Debutante Ball, Lucy Chambers, Erica O'Grady, Rosa Glenn-Reilly, Sarah Gish, Dusty Gilbert, Hillary Harmon, Cynthia Lescalleet, Kit Detering, Tracy Pesikoff, Dana Kervin, Katherine Weber, Dr. Linda Cook, Sherry Levy, Rebecca Rautio, the Houston Smith and Vassar clubs, and St. John's School.
And just a few other teachers I am grateful to have known growing up: Linda Woods, Jean Martin, Virginia Roeder, Rosie Beneritto, and Florence Harris—and the amazing Myrtle Sims, whom I've come to admire as an adult. Thanks, too, to my mommy group friends just for being awesome: Jenny Nelson, Erika Locke, Julia Smith Wellner, and Andrea Campbell. And a few other friends and family: Faye Robeson, Abigail Mayo, McNair Johnson, Philip Alter, Veronique Vaillaincourt, and Mimi and Herman Detering.
&
nbsp; And again, as always, I want to thank my supersmart, so-excited family for the billions of ways they always help me out. More thanks and love than I can possibly express go to my beautiful sisters, Lizzie Pannill and Shelley Stein; my awesome brother-in-law, Matt; my niece, Yasmin; my parents-in-law, Ingrid and Al Center; Grandma Yetta Center; my very supportive dad, Bill Pannill; my wise and tolerant mom, Deborah Detering; my blue-ribbon husband, Gordon Center (thanks again, G! Sorry about all the pens in the bed!); and my two children, Anna and Thomas—who are so deliciously cute, they should be on cupcakes themselves!
Also by Katherine Center
The Bright Side of Disaster
About the Author
KATHERINE CENTER is the author of The Bright Side of Disaster. She graduated from Vassar College, where she won the Vassar College Fiction Prize, and received an MA in fiction from the University of Houston. She served as fiction co-editor for the literary magazine Gulf Coast, and her graduate thesis, “Peepshow,” a collection of stories, was a finalist for the Mary McCarthy Prize in Short Fiction. A former freelance writer and teacher, she lives in Houston with her husband and two young children.
www.katherinecenter.com
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Everyone Is Beautiful Page 23
