Compost Studios

I’m sitting on ten extra pounds as I write this from the big, black chair that serves as mission control for my virtual life in front of the computer.

Ten pounds.

That’s quite a cushion. That’s more than one roll over the waistband. That’s enough to make my jeans scream and my zippers groan. That Botticelli belly lurking under my sweater is not a work of art—it’s my expat fat.

Expat in every sense of the word.

I call it expat fat because it’s living in a place where it doesn’t really belong, It doesn’t fit the traditional geography of my body, and while my body has allowed it here for an extended visit, it has overstayed its welcome.

The expat fat was not with me when I stumbled through customs at Zaventem in a jet-lagged daze and began a new life in Belgium. I first made its acquaintance a bit later, when I spent nearly eight weeks restaurant hopping while waiting to settle into a proper home with a fully equipped kitchen. During that time, the expat fat began to join me at meals, like a side order of frites or a tasty little pastry.

But while it would be easy to blame Belgian cuisine for my sins of the flesh, the majority of the damage to my figure was achieved after we moved into our house near Brussels.

That’s the point where life should have started to feel “normal” but didn’t. I felt more than a little lost. The kitchen offered comfort and a warm chair by the radiator when the spring rains drenched the windows and the grey clouds roiled moodily overhead. With my days suddenly emptied of nearly all that was familiar, there was an enormous emotional hunger that begged to be fed.

Like birds in a nest, my needs were perched in my heart with open mouths: I felt vulnerable, agog at the new world I’d been thrust into, unsure whether I would ever be able to fly here, and whether I would successfully navigate this foreign landscape.

And so to quiet the squawks of fear and loneliness, I developed the bad habit of dropping tidbits into my mouth all day long. Looking for a bit of comfort, I turned to the wrong source. Food for the body was not food for the soul, and it was my soul that needed feeding.

And so over time, my tendency to grab a handful of this or a bit of that while standing in the kitchen created the expat fat. But the expat fat has not been good company. Because of it, I am not only a stranger in a strange land but a stranger in my own body. My own clothes don’t recognize me anymore.

Granted, I’m not terribly overweight. I can’t claim the expat fat is ruining my life. It’s just that I’ve gone from being like a lovely Windsor chair with a sturdy frame and vertical lines to being more like a padded recliner—fuller, rounder, not so pretty. We all know the Windsor chair will last a lifetime while the upholstered chair in all its soft padded glory will soon sag and fray. The recliner has got to go.

So I’m preparing to bid adieu to the expat fat. Its one year residency permit is about to expire in March. Its visa will not be renewed.

I don’t feel badly about putting it out. I’m sure there’s another pair of slim hips coming through the gates at Zaventem ready to give it a new home.

February 1, 2006