Trigger Warning: This conversation contains discussion of eating disorders and nutrition post-recovery. Please take care of yourselves as you listen and avoid if these topics might be triggering for you.
Everyone please welcome my friend and fellow Substack writer Sarah Plenge to A Broadway Body: Continued Conversations! Sarah and I met while I was thick in the depths of a serving job, and she brought a little beam of light to my life every Tuesday night. We have since kept in touch, and on a recent strand walk with Sarah, I knew I had to have a body image conversation with her.
In our conversation, Sarah speaks on how much clarity she has in her life now that she’s out of the weeds of her eating disorder. She shares about so much deeply impactful insight into how her experience has shaped how she now lives her life and how she creates her art and how healing has brought her closer to all of the wonderful things she wants for her life. Listen for her take on how our bodies are our best friends and how we need to shape our culture to treat others with kindness and respect.
It was a true honor to have Sarah as part of this series. She’s so wise when it comes to the topics of body image and nature. Sarah drops pure poetic gold in this conversation, including but certainly not limited to this quote that’s stuck with me since we spoke: “We are flowers; we are not meant to bloom year round.“ I can’t wait for you to listen to our conversation and soak up all of the goodness Sarah has to share!
“One really big shift I had in recovery was starting to see my body as the best friend I'll ever have and the only one that I'll have for the entirety of my life, and she is the only one that knows everything. Everything! What an incredible friend. And she's held me through all of it - the excruciating pain and the boundless joy. I vow to take care of her just as much as she takes care of me.”
- Sarah Plenge
Sarah Plenge: I was trying to get my thoughts in order before we sat down to talk, and one thing I was reflecting on in kind of my own body image journey and even how it's affected my professional life and obviously my personal life, but it's been really interesting for me. I think the greatest lesson that my eating disorder has gifted me has been the power of choice, and we really get to choose what we subscribe to in life and especially the media that we consume and the messages that we're telling our self. And I will say probably the biggest shift that happened internally on my recovery and that continues to happen in so many aspects of healing in my life is my self-talk and how I choose to talk to myself and others and, especially, I mean around body stuff and around food, and a lot of it feel can feel like automatic and overwhelming at times, but I really focus on trying to be willing to receive the pause because there's always a pause between thoughts. And before I go down this rabbit hole of like freaking out because a certain pair of jeans doesn't fit, what can I do to be like, “Hey, actually, I don't want to wear this outfit because it's really uncomfortable,” and that's fine. And some days the jeans fit, and sometimes they don't, and that's fine and super normal. And It really sucks that our education system does not involve an aspect of talking about how our bodies fluctuate and change and delves into hormones. And I mean, that's probably a function of a lot of research not getting funded, and we're like just learning so much about women's bodies as women are allowed more and more into STEM spaces, and that's a whole different conversation, so I'll stop myself there.
Megan Gill: Yeah, no, but also an important thing to point out. It's very true. I think that so much of it is the lack of our education, even as young women. I'm so grateful that there is more research being done about women and our bodies. And even just the simple fact that we fluctuate so much over the course of a 30-day cycle, body-wise, is something that I didn't realize until recently. Like, everyone's talking about your luteal phase and your follicular phase, and I'm learning like, “Oh yeah, duh, of course this makes sense,” and of course our bodies and our energy levels and our minds are going to be different over the course of our cycle. And I do think it's important to point out.
Sarah Plenge: And I think a really big piece of it that I am learning right now is that all of the seasons are okay and feelings are perfectly safe. They show up and they pass through, and it's just all water in the creek and it all flows on at some point. And I think as women especially go through these seasonal periods, within our cycles especially, it's kind of cool that every month we are offered an invitation to go in and explore whatever's in there. And like I know that my diet really affects how my cycles work, and the more I've gotten in touch with that, the more I've actually been open to eating to feel good and not to look a certain way, and how can I fuel myself to move in the ways that I want to and not just move because I want this set of muscles to look good or I want this outfit to look good or I want this person to pay attention to me. It's crazy all these things that like go through our heads all the time!
Megan Gill: Oh, yes! And all of these things I think we, at least in my experience, did not speak about to anyone until now. And it's just It's sad that we, for so long, I think were struggling on our own in those ways, trapped in our own minds with all of these thoughts.
Sarah Plenge: Oh, so much shame.
Megan Gill: So much shame. And just looking in the mirror and even trying to get ready one day, right, this morning, it comes down to the self-talk. It’s like I'm not going to let myself go there. Doing the healing to get to a point where you're like, “Hey, I'm aware that I'm, I'm having these thoughts. And I'm gonna honor the thoughts,” because they're gonna pop up. Like you said, it's normal. We get to revisit it every month, you know,
Sarah Plenge: Hey buddy!
Megan Gill: Before I kind of went on this deep dive of my own healing, I used to be like, why is it that like two weeks out of my cycle I feel really good about myself, and I'm vibing, I like feel good in my body, I like the way I look, I have a lot of energy. And then the other two weeks I'm like, oh, I don't feel good in my body, I don't like the way I look, nothing fits, nothing feels good. Like, oh, hmm, now it makes sense to me. And also just honoring those phases and honoring the thoughts that come up and having enough awareness, that's what I was getting to.
Sarah Plenge: No, I understand. But it's also learning can I love the question, can I love the uncertainty, can I love the place that feels weird and gushy and unhealed and not fit, for five minutes? It's fine, you know? I don't know, listening to you talk just now brought up a couple things for me where I think so much of an eating disorder is wanting to shrink, right? And it's wanting to fit into a mold that we perceive that is in front of us. I'm speaking about my experience and also experiences that I've connected with with others. And I think, at least for me, it was so much about this desire to be loved. And I was like, “If I can look a certain way, then people are going to like me, and I'm not going to have to deal with my stuff.” And that doesn't work for a very long time. We're super seasonal creatures. We're not meant to look a certain way all the time, and so much of my healing has been around learning to accept myself as I am and knowing that I am enough just as I am right now in this moment and that is worth everything, and I don't want to waste any more of my precious, sweet time on this planet trying to be someone that I'm not. It doesn't work, and it never has for me, and whenever I stray off the path, my body has a really funny habit of reminding me, “Hey, man, go enjoy what's right in front of you.”
I'm having that experience right now, where I have had two really random injuries this month. And I just moved to a place that's super beautiful, and I was intending on exploring all this nature. And I've actually been brought back into myself in being like, actually, I don't have to move through nature really intensely in order to enjoy it. I actually get to go sit and be still with this place and appreciate it for what it is. And how does the sun move through the trees and what can that teach me? And how can I go be in nature in this body and still feel beautiful? Because that's really what we want at the end of the day. It's like we all want to know that we're worthy and loved and capable of connection and just to be ourselves. That’s so much of what it's about, and it is really interesting that I think a lot of – I mean everyone of every gender might struggle with an eating disorder, but I'm just speaking from the experience as a woman, and so many of the women I know have, especially in LA and growing up here, so many of us have gone through just like weird stuff with food, even if it wasn't just with an eating disorder. How many, how many of the women I know have tried to be smaller? And how many of us have used our food as a method of control? And how many of us have demonized our emotions? I sure did. I've used it since I was a little kid, emotional eating. I didn't know any other coping skills. I was like, “The ice cream makes my brain feel awesome.”
Megan Gill: Same, same! So I'm gonna eat a whole friggin half-gallon of it, quarter-gallon, something like that, yeah!
Sarah Plenge: And it was delicious, and I really wish it had been like, actually, that was super okay to do. And I actually went through a phase where I just really needed to eat a lot of ice cream when I was weight restoring, and it felt really scary, and I kind of wish I had just been able to relax and eat the ice cream.
Megan Gill: Like enjoy it?
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, because I didn't. I was so scared of the ice cream, but I had to eat it. It was crazy! Recovery feels really crazy sometimes. And sometimes I just need to eat a bunch of food and that's okay. It's so okay to eat your food and like take a nap instead of going to the fucking Pilates class. It’s fine!
Megan Gill: I think that it like ultimately comes down to true deep listening to what your body needs today in this moment, which I think ties back to this whole piece about what you were just speaking of, which reminds me of presence, how coming back into our bodies and how being present in the moment, instead of being hyper-fixated on things and worrying about the future or worrying about food things and exercise things and all of these things that my brain used to literally think about 24/7 – not to be so definitive, but I spent so much time and energy worrying about that shit. But coming back to the present moment and being like, “What do I need now? I planned on going to a yoga class at 5:30, but actually, I'm really freaking tired, and I'm worried that –.” Now my brain goes to, “Maybe you should not go to class. Stay home, rest your body, and nap, so that you don't get sick.” It comes back to how can I truly protect this vessel that is mine, that I have done so much work to love so deeply.
Everything you were saying about coming back to self-love, the love that you were seeking from someone else, realizing that you can give that to yourself even by just taking care of your body in these subtle, important ways, and how eating food that your body's craving equals self-love. I think that's such a wild concept for at least my brain.
Sarah Plenge: That’s beautiful, yeah.
Megan Gill: And it took me a while to latch onto that and be like, “Oh, that can be a form of self -love. Crazy!” But it makes sense because also, at the end of the day, like this is all you've got.
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, I get one of these!
Megan Gill: Yeah! I know, and I also don't want to waste all of my time worrying about her. I want to be able to be present and be in my body.
My perception of like a lot of your art and a lot of your work is nature based and how you have now allowed yourself to fully be present and fully be in your body in this thing that you love to capture, and you love to write about. And I just think the power of being present is so, so impactful and so important also for our healing around the body stuff too. I loved hearing you talk about that because – do you think that's almost shifted the way – you coming back into your body and like being able to show up and be present, not always, but in those times you are, has that allowed you to write about nature and capture nature and the things that you love to capture through the camera through a different lens?
Sarah Plenge: There are a couple things. I actually think my healing shows up the most through my writing right now, and I'm putting together an anthology of poetry about some stuff I went through a couple years ago. It was really difficult and painful, but I was kind of going through like years and years of poetry, and it was interesting for me as I really commit to my healing that so much of it I was able to view through just different times of day and different seasons, and how I was able to like take rage, which is a really scary feeling for me, and I'm still learning how to hold that and like be vulnerable and be like, “Actually, it's super okay for me to just be mad when something bad happens. It's okay. It's a super ike safe feeling of outlets,” you know? And knowing that, oh, that feels like night for me, and knowing when I have a breakthrough, that feels like dawn for me, and knowing that all of these places that I feel broken are just opportunities for light to come in.
And I also think that I have had some really unfortunate – and all of them are like due to my eating disorder, when I run back to it, your gut is connected to your brain, and when you're not taught to take care of your tummy from a young age, it can really mess you up. And I struggle with a lot of health issues as a result of that. And I have found a lot of gratitude in, especially with photography, and I guess in that vein, when I am able to go out and I do feel good enough to participate in nature and I can go do a big gnarly swim with my water housing and I get all the juicy adrenaline and yapping with people in the lineup and it's awesome and, honestly, that's like where I feel the best. But I'm not always there, and that's super, okay. We are flowers; we are not meant to bloom year round. It's okay. If you can, that's wonderful.
Megan Gill: Yeah, you write poetry, yeah. You're so eloquent with these beautiful visuals. You keep dropping gold on me. And I'm like, “Oh my god” But just hearing you speak, I keep coming back to this cycle, not like the circle of life, but that we're cyclical beings, and that we're not meant to be stagnant, and that we are meant to change, and that we are meant to shift and evolve.
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, healing is not linear!
Megan Gill: Yeah, even just like being a human is not linear. We are growing older each day and changing and evolving each day. Something that has stuck with me from a young age, which is really interesting, is I've always loved change. When I learned in science class in middle school that the delta meant change, I was like, “Oh, if I ever get a tattoo, I want that because I think it's important to always be changing.”
Sarah Plenge: Aww.
Megan Gill: Which is very, very interesting, then, to know that I went on for the next ten-ish years of my life to not want to allow nature to take its process via my body. What am I trying to say? I was like not allowing the natural process of change to happen. I feel like I was almost trying to control it and pull it back.
Sarah Plenge: It can be really scary. Yeah, it can be super scary.
Megan Gill: Like, ah how fascinating, how interesting. And now to be on the other side of the ways in which I struggled in many ways and to be able to see oh, wow. Interesting that change can be so beautiful and lovely if we embrace it and if we allow it, but then if we try to control it to change ourselves to be something we're not meant to be, it can be very dark.
Sarah Plenge: Totally. Well, what you were saying about the control piece is so central to eating disorders, and I think disordered body image in general. And I remember having some people I was working with when I was younger say, “Well, you know, this is like really a control mechanism. Your not eating or your eating too much or your purging is like a function of control.” And I remember being like, “What are you talking about? You are so silly! I'm fine! I can handle it.”
But when you're talking about change, change can be terrifying and change can mean that you're walking over a carpet and suddenly there's a trap door or you're on top of a nice, beautiful wave and the bottom falls out and you're over the falls. And It can be really, really scary, and it sometimes doesn't feel good. And I also think that when we're trying to control the drop, we're not trusting the process, which is a lot easier said than done. But knowing that, ultimately, I don't think I'm screwed, and I know that my life's purpose is something greater than shrinkage or stagnation and knowing that if I surrender to this process that's natural and in front of me, then I'm probably going to turn out okay, and if I give my lif the respect and honor to teach me, then I usually find some really incredible gift on the other side that I wouldn't have access to otherwise. If my life's purpose was to be skinny, you and I wouldn't be talking.
Megan Gill: We wouldn't be!
Sarah Plenge: No.
Megan Gill: Also, what a very sad life purpose. Like, what? Why? Ugh.
Sarah Plenge: I don't know. Enough! Enough!
Megan Gill: And I don't want anyone to experience that and I don't want anyone to think that that's the end goal and that to be skinny means that I will be loved and all of these things and I'll be worthy and I'll finally book TV. It's like, “No bitch, be yourself because that's when you're gonna fucking see the magic happen!” And just hearing you talk about embracing what's ahead for you, it’s just so lovely.
Sarah Plenge: Well, pain is what gets us to pay attention. And a lot of time, if we're ignoring our bodies, they are really expressive. And I mean, I feel really blessed that my body is really somatic, and one really big shift I had in recovery was starting to see my body as the best friend I'll ever have and the only one that I'll have for the entirety of my life, and she is the only one that knows everything, everything! What an incredible friend, and she's held me through all of it, through all of it. Yeah, the excruciating pain and the boundless joy. She has been there for me more than anyone.
Megan Gill: That’s really beautiful. Really, really beautiful. I've never thought about it in that sense and how also you treat your friends the way you want to be treated too, right?
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, exactly.
Megan Gill: In a lovely, little metaphorical sense. It's like why are we putting our best friend through all of this turmoil?
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, there are things that I've said to my body that are horrific, you know? There are things I've like done to my body that are awful. I would have called CPS on myself. Like, jeez, you know? So it's like I think a lot of it, I mean, in talking about trust and change and surrender and awareness and also reforming – it's a relationship, right – reforming a relationship with my body, and learning that she is worthy of trust and affection and love and like all of the good things. And when I'm going through injury or if I don't feel good, I vow to take care of her just as she takes care of me. And I also know that my body is a really valuable source of intuition, and she knows what's up and the more I listen to her, the more I am led down a path that's been really beautiful. I feel so blessed with my life, and I've been through a lot of stuff and I could really choose to stop somewhere, you know? I could say that actually this is as far as I go, but I really want to do that!
Megan Gill: No, you’re not doing that! No, no, no!
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, I'm not doing that. I’ve got too much art to make!
Megan Gill: So much art to make!
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, it keeps coming out of me!
Megan Gill: Hmm, almost like you're meant to do this with your life! Crazy! Wild! Gosh, I'm just like the world needs your stories and what you have to say. And even listening to you speak right here right now, I just love the way that you are speaking and I'm just like, yeah, you're a really good fucking writer because the way that you speak also, I think, reflects the way that you write too. And it's just really lovely and beautiful.
Sarah Plenge: You're so sweet. Thank you.
Megan Gill: Well, it's really lovely, and the world needs your lens of everything that you went through and all of the experiences you've had. They need to hear what you have to say and see via your art, and I think that's really important and there is so much more to be said and I'm so excited for this compilation of poetry to be released to the world!
Sarah Plenge: I studied environment in school. I studied a couple things, but environment was one of them. And my eating disorder recovery was super intense in college. Just for context, I went from one of my low weights to one of my high weights within six months my freshman year, and it was like so intense, oh my god. But I was also in a new environment, and I was experiencing really gnarly winter for the first time, and that was the first time I had gone through a really deep wintering, and I was also really lucky to be surrounded with people that were really involved in climate action and people that I was able to like share some of what I was going through with.
And in learning about environment, the more I got in touch with it and also through the lens of anthropology, which is one of the other things I was studying, learning a lot about the perception of self and other and how damaging that is to our psyches in a lot of ways, and how it's important, I think, sometimes to have binaries, just to give us some perspective. But in the broad scheme of things, if we are to heal a planet that is really burning and that's really talking to us, and the more we're able to see ourselves as products of the planet, and we're just a bunch of animals that happened to figure out how to talk and breed like crazy and do all the wonderful things that humans do. But seeing ourselves in relation to the planet, and starting to see my body as a landscape has been really helpful and has so deepened my relationship with myself and has allowed me to perceive my body with reverence and understand that, I don't know, I'm not going to go up to a canyon or go up to a rock and tell it that I think it's bad because it has some bumps or lines or scars or whatever. I'm not going to go to a tree that happens to be really chubby and be like, “You suck.” That's so lame.
Megan Gill: Oh, my gosh, yeah, absolutely.
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, so I think, I don't know, I guess that's like a sweet way that I practice self-love. And also I've really been able to care about the planet I live on, and I'm just really blessed that I'm able-bodied and allowed to go surf and swim and ski and hike and do all the things that I love doing and have formed communities through that and have, you know, let an old version of myself shed through that way too. And also that's been a really big part of my family for a really long time. And being able to look at, actually, I want to ski with my dad forever. If I take care of myself, I get to do that. And I want to be able to go on like cute, little walks with my mom for as long as we're both walking. I want to do that.
And one of the ways that I feel like I get to celebrate and honor my, I don't know, people that came before me, I'm really blessed that I come from a family of athletes, and one of the ways that I can honor my family is by continuing to be active and move. I'm not necessarily a competitive person, but I just love to move. It just feels so good for me, and it reminds me of one of the reasons why I get to live this life that I do. And, I don't know, not to get too woo, but I do think that like everyone is here for their own reason and we're all endowed with our own set of gifts. And the more I pay attention to what's right in front of me, the more I'm allowed to just be grateful for what is here now, and yeah, not try to fit into things that weren't meant for me. And sometimes it's also okay to outgrow things and shed and that just means we're making room for new things to come into our lives.
It's like crop cycling, you know? Not everything can grow year-round in the same climate, and it's all just kind of okay. My food's okay. My body's okay. I'm in good health. I have so much to be grateful for right now, and I don't know, I wouldn't have spoken this way a couple years ago – not a couple years ago, but a little bit longer ago. But whenever I'm going through it with body image stuff, when that little friend crops up –
Megan Gill: Hey, old friend.
Sarah Plenge: It's like, hey buddy. Yeah.
Megan Gill: We’ll acknowledge you, we’ll hear you out and then let you go on your way.
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, she just wants to talk, you know?
Megan Gill: She wants to be heard, yeah.
Sarah Plenge: Yeah. The more I understand humans in general as just like a bunch of little kids that at some point have to do taxes, it’s like the more I'm just like, “Oh, hey man, what's up? What are we doing today? Like, how are you?” Yeah, and just like getting in there and being really cozy with uncomfortable stuff, the question becomes more, yeah, like I said, “How can I love this today?” And I don't know, I feel like I'm this whole time I've been speaking, I'm noticing I'm coming from a very – I've definitely been in like a hibernating season for a while and like definitely kind of been in my like psychic cave of, “Okay, I have to go into the editing hole and finish my weird, little projects, and I'll emerge at some point!” And I'm sure in a different season of my life I would be speaking differently. But yeah, I think right now something I'm really feeling is when we are invited to go in, it’s really important to honor the call and there's so much richness in that soil.
—
Megan Gill: I agree, and even if it does feel a little uncomfortable or unknown, just having faith that it's going to lead you to where you're supposed to be, I very much believe that too, what you were saying about us being here for a reason and acknowledging the beauty around us and acknowledging the things in the present moment. I couldn't see beauty for such a long time. I couldn't see, not necessarily beauty, but I couldn't see the rock. I didn't even know it was there, let alone to be able to see that it had bumps on it, you know? I feel like when you start becoming more present and shedding those things that kept you hung up for so long on this and that or whatever, being able to be in the moment and see where you're supposed to be heading or be able to even listen deeply for that call of what's next, like you were saying, so that you can follow it, I feel like is the only way to move through the world. But not everyone allows themselves to explore that. And I think it takes going through the deep unknown and the discomfort of what's coming next to even get to the place of the beauty.
It is scary. It is scary to surrender and have radical acceptance of, “This is where I am right now. I don't know what tomorrow is going to bring.” Yeah, it's terrifying. But also I struggled with a lot of anxiety in my past, and not that I still don't, but something that's helped me really deal with that is being more present and is having radical acceptance and is embracing the uncertainty of what's ahead. And I can't go back because being anxious or struggling in the ways that I struggled. I don't want to live like that. I don't want that life anymore. It's so beautiful over here and it's so much clearer and it's so much more rich. And I want more people to get to that place, to be able to fully experience their lives and be able to fully see the beauty in the trees and all of these subtle things in nature that are just given to us that we like choose to look over every day. That’s the stuff.
Sarah Plenge: That's the stuff. That's what we're here for. When I think about the times in my life that I kind of get to look around and go, “Oh, like this is what it's about,” has been a lot of times skiing or surfing or being somewhere and usually being in nature in really good company. And not to say that any of the times I've had just beautiful dinner conversations or have gotten to hold somebody's hand who I love so much, all those things are so worth it. And yeah, the present moment has so much to offer if only we choose to be here. And I think when we're caught, I don't know, in the torrential downpour of bullshit that we are forced to consume, especially as women around our size and like what's deemed good and worthy and all of those things, it's really hard to be present. And the more we're able to step out of that, yeah, like you said, the beauty is all right there if we choose to see it.
I mean, what you were saying was really on point. It is a choice to want to look at it. Also knowing that sometimes when you choose to look at it, it can be really painful, and sometimes you're looking at something that's like not aesthetically beautiful and that is also worthy of love and tenderness and care.
Yeah, my poet is showing, but there's this one Khalil Gibran poem. It's called “On Pain”, and it's an excerpt from The Prophet, and it talks about how if only you understood the richness of what was in front of you, the more you would be able to watch serenely as the winters of grief passed over your fields and know that all of the seasons are there. It's just a lot about trust. It's a lot about faith, I think, and not even faith necessarily in a religious sense, but just faith in, “Okay, I'm gonna turn this over to not me, because my tiny, little human brain can't always figure this out, and my human brain is the one that picks up on all the diet culture stuff.” So the more that I'm able to just be like, “Oh, hey, like, that's the thing that my brain is doing,” which is exactly what it's supposed to be doing. It's supposed to be digesting and analyzing and…
Megan Gill: Keeping us safe.
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, exactly. So, you know, she's just doing what she knows how to do and also knowing that like I am more than just my brain. I'm also more than just my body. I'm so many other things, and it is a choice too to step into the woman that I want to become, and I have had to spend a lot of time in my mid 20s writing about what that looks like. And there's a lot of stuff that when I was younger, I didn't let myself dream about. I never dreamed about a wedding or any of that stuff. I was so obsessed with trying to be thin and trying to fit in and all of these things.
Megan Gill: Oh, my god, same. Ahh!
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, and more recently I've just been letting myself write about what do I actually want my life to look like? I'm so lucky that even though, I don't know, this country is far from perfect, I do still have autonomy, and I can still choose to express myself as I want to. And what does that look like for me? Like, what do I, Sarah, want out of all of these spaces in my life? And, you know, I so wish I could go back and tell my little eight-year-old, and just be like, “Hey, actually, it's, like, super normal for you to be the tallest girl in the class, and you gained a bunch of weight really fast because you're growing so tall, like so, so tall.”
I'll just share this, but I had a really interesting therapy session last week where I was kind of going in and exploring some stuff around my inner child. And I like uncovered this memory of being in ballet when I was little and being in this little Christmas tree costume. And I remember being so, so scared that I was the biggest person in the photo because I was just like a head or two taller than all the other girls. I don't know if that was a function of all the hormones in the soy milk or what. But I was just a really tall little kid, and I was just a bigger little kid. Super normal but girls would tease me about it. It sucked, and like instead of that being like a thing of reverence like, “Damn, actually, she is so athletic. Can I get her to like be on sports teams really young?”
Megan Gill: Right? Why is that seen as such a bad thing?
Sarah Plenge: Yeah, and how much of my life did I spend, I don't know, not appreciating that gift that was given me. And, like I said, I pay for it now in a lot of ways, and it kind of sucks, but it also has taught me to just appreciate like the capabilities I do have.
“ Before I go down this rabbit hole of freaking out because a certain pair of jeans doesn't fit Like what can I do to be like, “Hey, actually I don't want to wear this outfit because it's really uncomfortable, and that's fine.” Some days the jeans fit, and sometimes they don't, and that's fine and super normal. It really sucks that our education system does not involve an aspect of talking about how our bodies fluctuate and change.”
- Sarah Plenge
Sarah is a California-based artist working primarily in the mediums of photography and writing. As both an environmental advocate and a visually-oriented creative, she strives to promote the narrative that nature is for everyone, everywhere.
After earning her undergraduate degree, she went on to pursue a career in nonprofit program coordination and partnerships management. She has since migrated beyond the development world and is primarily available for contract creative work.
Sarah is honored to have been featured in a number of different publications and exhibitions. You can find her work with Daybreak Magazine, Photoworks San Francisco, and Emocean. She shared wall spaces with talented artists at the Orange County Fair, the Film Scouts store, and at the High Tides Sessions in Southern California. She also shot her first commercial brand campaign for Lasso Surf, a surf goods company from her hometown.
Email: sarahplenge2222@gmail.com
Website: www.sarahplenge.com
Substack: “Blue Wine” at sarahplenge.substack.com
Instagram: www.instagram.com/senditblondie
Stay tuned for Sarah’s anthology of her poetry coming soon!
While I’m not a licensed therapist, registered dietician, or medical health professional and cannot speak to body image topics from a clinical, trauma-informed place, I am an expert of lived experience. I’m an academic of my own body, and I’m passionate about facilitating conversations with other humans about their relationships with their bodies. I believe it’s important to continue conversations about healthy body image in creative spaces as a means to heal individuals as well as the collective whole. But just know the information presented in this medium is not professional mental health advice or medical advice, and any questions or concerns you have should always be directed to your health providers.
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