by Frances Raybaud
When I was a freshman, I went vegetarian because I thought meat was making me fat. God, was that annoying. For one, everyone groans when you say you’re vegetarian. No matter your reasoning- the environment, disliking the taste of meat, trying to improve your health (none of which were mine)- people will be somehow inconvenienced by your choice. For another thing, I am the most likely out of everyone you will ever know to burn the house down trying to fry an egg. So my diet went from varied and interesting to two things:
- Arugula slathered in white vinegar (yum!) (not fun for my roommates)
- A bastardization of the Malagasy dish rougaille, where I just chopped up onions/tomatoes/cucumbers/hot peppers and dumped a ton of salt on top of the mess (to curb the heat)
Needless to say, I lost about ten pounds. Now, historically, my friends tend to be larger than me. That’s because I’m small. I wear child sized gloves. Men like to pat me on the head. So when my ribs started to show, I wasn’t too bothered. It was just more of me being small. I liked it, even. My friends had used to point out my stomach was flat- and now it actually was. In fact, it was starting to become concave.
And then people started commenting. Asking why I was so thin. Asking if I was okay, if I needed something to eat. Implying I had some sort of disorder. And it was true- I was hungry all the freaking time! But it was either admit I had fucked up and couldn’t cook my own food, or continue to suffer. I saw my bra size go down. My favorite pants were too large. I knew I was too thin, but I didn’t want to be larger. I had felt fucking fat at 115 pounds, and now I was skeletal, but I comforted myself with the thought that I’d be able to break out of jail by moving through the bars.
I quit being vegetarian midway through the following summer. But by then I was in love, with a woman whose very body was the way I’d always wanted to be. Soft. Not all sharp edges and angles. She would lay her head on my chest and I would constantly be asking her- are you sure you’re comfortable? Yes, she’d say. You’re comfortable. But I wasn’t. I’d be sleeping next to her, or sleeping with her, and I’d start freaking out. I didn’t know why I wanted her body so much, only that I didn’t want my own. Sitting down wasn’t comfortable because I didn’t have padding. Elbowing someone was like shanking them. My stomach was flat and I didn’t know where the hell my organs were.
Coveting my girlfriend’s body aside, my body dysmorphia was such that I didn’t like looking in the mirror too much. I knew my body was mine because I had to live with it every day, but it felt like I was a parasite who’d taken over the wrong kind of host. My hair had gone from green to dark red and now I was this weird strawberry on a stick…and that’s not a snack anyone wants to sell. But I didn’t want to eat more lest I got fat. Because in America, what’s worse than being thin? Being too large. So even I, whose bras from high school gaped, fell prey to this.
Enter Morocco. You can’t go to Morocco without gorging yourself on bread. You can try, but it’s not going to work. I lived with a host family over the summer that wouldn’t let me leave the table unless I’d had two servings at least. Ramadan came- and I fasted- and it went, and I was starting to notice my ribs weren’t showing. The business casual pants I’d bought for meetings in May were no longer business casual. Instead, my friends in Morocco started calling them “the business pants.” Drop a wink. The clothes I’d brought for Franny in the Middle East didn’t work for Franny in North Africa. They didn’t…fit.
Gaining weight was something I began to relish. Here in Morocco, you eat. And you eat, and you continue to eat. Vegetarians are laughed at, maybe served with a “willy willy willy…” Living in a vastly different culture, my opinion shifted. I had always been vain, but the vanity had been tinged with deep, deep insecurity. Now, even as Moroccan water rendered my hair limp and my face oily, my body finally started feeling like mine. I signed up for belly dancing classes at the end of September, and I’ve been going three times a week. To belly dance, you need a belly. You can be thin, but you can’t have a flat stomach, or what the hell are you shaking?
Belly dancing is exercise that doesn’t feel like exercise. It’s an hour or two of shaking every part of you that can jiggle with sequins and metal tags and…well, I’ve got a friend who calls me Jingle Bell. Most importantly, everyone is having fun and exposing all parts of themselves. When you’re in a gym walled in mirrors, you can’t avoid looking. But the women who belly dance with me don’t give a shit about lumps or sagging. The more fat, the more jingle. It’s like partying- and you’re not wasted, and you’re not high. You’re just having fun. Everyone looks good when they belly dance- and you’re encouraged to scream when the time feels right.
I’m not large by any means. There is probably no person in this world that would call me fat. But it wasn’t about other people’s opinions. It was always about this voice inside that didn’t like my body. If I studied sociology, I’d be able to comment more on how society convinced me I wasn’t enough. It certainly did take a whole different part of the world for me to finally stop looking for validation about the way I looked. But it’s probably also that I started eating real meals. As a kid, I was a bottomless pit. As a teenager, I was a rabbit. Finally, I’m eating like a human. Granted, I eat like a Moroccan—so yeah, I use my hands.
I like the way I look—and most importantly, I feel good. I like jingling, I like jiggling, I like the box in which my soul is packaged. Maybe I’ll never be as comfortable a pillow as others, but mirrors don’t scare me anymore.
