When I caught her name on a recent comment, I did a triple-take. Sattie Clark was the commenter, but - hey, waitaminute, that's also the name of the artist on the CD I perpetually listen to at work. I was a little star-struck. And excited.
I was quick to email her, "Thanks for your comment on UrbanMamas".... blah blah blah. But, what I really wanted to tell her was that I love love love her CD "fathom". And, then, a beautiful relationship was born.
We shared thoughts on the juggle of mamahood, choosing preschools, diversity in Portland. We talked about one day getting together. Don't we all? We always say, "We should get together." For my life to feel complete, I needed to make that happen. I ran out of the office one rainy morning, and I dropped in on Sattie at her office. (Oh, I'm so infatuated with the music that I forgot to mention, Sattie and her husband Eric started and run their own business. um. that's super-cool.) We chatted for a good 73 minutes or so. You know, when you first meet someone in person, after all this intimate online exchange, it's weird for a little. But, if you're meant to click, then you click, in maybe 5 minutes, somtimes 10.
Sattie runs, too. Hope to pull her into our run-mama-run group. Oh, and she's published too! She wrote a letter to the editor of Health magazine, in response to an article that seemed to promote liposuction and drive healthy & fit women to hate their bodies. Here's what she had to say:
Dear Ali,
I think you missed the boat in your response to "I hate these saddlebags!" Her friends may not be supportive of her intent to get liposuction for an important reason that you did not address. They may feel that her body is lovely and lovable just as it is and that what she really needs to change is her unhealthy obsession with being model thin. I think that Health magazine has a responsibility to challenge our culture's insane messages to healthy, fit women that their bodies still aren't good enough. I recently met someone whose job it is to digitally alter photographs of celebrities. She assured me that all photos you see of stars are altered to make them look perfect (unless they are altered to make them look bad in the tabloids). Unfortunately, those altered images are what American women use to guage their own bodies and the result is always dissatisfaction. That dissatisfaction has created a multi-billion dollar industry for plastic surgeons, hair removal services, cosmetic dentistry, etc. And in my opinion, it's no coincidence that the image enhancement industry buys a lot of advertising space in the magazines that are perpetuating the fiction of the perfect body in the first place. It's a vicious spiral that can only be reversed by caring education on all fronts and by boycotting cosmetic surgery and other image enhancement services that "fix" women who are perfectly fine the way they are. Maybe "Saddlebag's" friends were trying to say, "friends don't let friends get cosmetic surgery." And maybe Health magazine and the director of the Mind/Body Center for Women's Health should be talking more about how to love and take care of the bodies we've got.
Yet another cool urbanMama among us.... looking forward to meeting more of you!
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