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by casting a circle of fertility, followed by a ritual hot tub, and Mimi needed fresh whole spices for cookies. With a yawn, she had thought about sleeping in. Her doctor had broached the possibility of supplementing her CPAP machine with sleep apnea medication, although she was kind enough to compliment Mimi on keeping her weight within twenty pounds for the last couple of years. Not so her orthopedist. He had no compunction about informing her that she needed orthoscopy on her right knee this summer with the other to follow within two or three years if she didn’t do something about her weight.
    And so here she was, fifty-two years old, in line with a two-year-old whining behind her, and a college junior “wondering” if three pounds a week wasn’t unreasonably slow, what with spring break coming up. Mimi knew the scale would do exactly what it wanted to, hovering a pound or three up or down from 255, but really, after delays at the Salt Lake airport en route from presenting at a PubMed class and the temptation of Cinnabon and Rocky Mountain Chocolate Factory, what did she expect?
    At least I threw the last couple of chocolates out. If I just had more self-control , she thought for the thirty-sixth time that morning. If I just gave up one thing. There must be life after chocolate…
    When her turn came, it was quick. “Two-five-four-point-two,” Linda said, writing the numbers down in her log. “That’s terrific, Mimi! A point-three-pound loss! Keep up the good work!”
    Mimi smiled for Linda and thanked her. That could add up to a whopping fifteen-point-something loss in a year, by golly. I could be at goal weight when I’m five-seven-point-something years old!
    It was eleven o’clock on a cloudy and cold but dry Saturday in April when the meeting was over and they’d gotten their new recipes and reminders about drinking water. Mimi decided to turn her hunger and sarcasm into optimism and head for Whole Foods with Linda’s three-point turtle “cheesecake” recipe in hand.
     
     
    We who eat compulsively, eat instead of speaking. We are the stars in a play for one actor, and both the stage and the dialogue are our bodies for the rare, critical audience. Like great drama, weight is showing, not telling, a psychic and biological story.
    Losing weight is the opposite of the dumb show of gain. The audience is bigger, more varied, and more vocal. Confessions are made (“I have issues with food, too,” my internist, who had hectored me about my obesity, admitted when I lost weight. Could she have told me that a hundred pounds of fat, despair, and confusion earlier???) and ambitions are formed.
    The impulse to lose doesn’t always involve three-digit numbers, fantasies, or the demands of doctors. It is not always epic. Sometimes weight loss is the drama of facing what is under our beds or behind the curtains, ferreting out the icky sources of unhappiness we furthered by our eating. We are in search of the courage to no longer ignore our dreams and to demand that we be taken seriously as we fashion a fitter, more disciplined body. These are fundamental principles in an authentic life.
     
     
    Lindsay slapped the snooze bar one more time and twisted the pillow under her ear. Why get up when she could hear the shower running? One of the things Jalen couldn’t stand was her peeing when he was using the bathroom.
    Jalen woke her before she got her seven minutes’ grace from Morning Edition . He sat down heavily on her side of the bed and said, “Look at my blister.”
    Lindsay mumbled concerned noises and burrowed deeper into the comforter.
    “It’s worse today.”
    “Mmm.”
    “I could barely keep running after seven miles.”
    “Awww.”
    “It really hurts, Linds. What am I gonna do? We’re running Fuller Park to Tannery tonight.”
    Lindsay summoned up a complete sentence at last. “Skip it, Easton.”
    “Hon,” he said in that reasoning-but-really-whining voice that felt like a forklift. “I can’t