my husband and i are avid fans of the bravo show top chef, for its emulsion of culinary inspiration, thrilling competition, world famous guest chef appearances, and reality tv drama. but when my husband asked me to order him an “i heart padma” t-shirt from the internet, i knew that there was something (or shall i say someONE) else drawing andy to the show:  the beloved host and judge, padma lakshmi.

i thought about being angry about this, but who can blame a man for recognizing beauty when he sees it?

since we were out of town for the show’s season seven premier, we settled in last night to “meet” this year’s competing chefs. but i had a difficult time concentrating on the show’s content because i was so thrilled to meet someone else: post-partum padma.

after years of struggling with endometriosis followed by a miraculous and much-celebrated ten months of pregnancy, padma was back on the show just three months after the birth of her daughter with an extra 25 pounds to show for it.

though she initially felt pressure to return to her lean pre-pregnancy size before the show’s taping, she allowed a healthier voice to take over. “women are beautiful in all shapes and sizes,” she explained, “and I wanted to show women that you can dress well, that you can still feel sexy, that you can still feel confident, and it was OK if my boobs were big because I was feeding another human being.”

so taken was i by padma’s courage to refrain from hiding her curves in tent-like layers of post-partum flowiness, that i noticed something else about her that had never registered with me before. on her upper arm, padma has a red seven-inch scar that she makes no effort to hide.

padma admits that she was once very self-conscious about this mark left by a terrible car accident when she was 14. but now she says, “i love my scar. it is so much a part of me. i’m not sure i would remove it even if a doctor could wave a magic wand and delete it from my arm.”

our bodies are markers of what we’ve been through. scars, wrinkles, and gray hairs are well-earned. we expand to hold new life and contract as we nurse those we love with all that we have. we are walking artifacts of tragedy and victory, and every minor or monumental thing that has ever happened to us. why shouldn’t we bear these things, as imperfect as they may seem, to one another? they’re the very things we have in common as human beings.

bravo for padma for proudly embodying her experiences of both darkness and light. i’m thinking about ordering myself an “i heart padma” shirt now. what do you think?

[the quotations in this post are from vogue  and babycenter.]