Taking all of my clothes off didn’t feel like such a
big deal, though it seems like progress that I was unashamed of my tampon
string. It felt like an even bigger milestone that I set up my beach umbrella
on my own and it didn’t fall down for most of the day. (Of course, when it did
fall down, there was a nice man who smelled like The Shy One to help me put it
back up!)
Naked on the beach for the first time in about nine
years, I didn’t feel the happy abandon, the instant adrenaline-rush pinupness I
used to. It took me a little while to settle in enough to enjoy the day, but I
never did fully settle in. The water was gorgeous and cool and I felt like a
beautiful free mermaid, at least as much as you can when industrial ships and a
big city skyline are in view.
Turning to float facing the shore, I saw a guy holding
his cell phone up, probably just talking, but maybe filming—I fought the urge
to flee. 2022 nude beach might be too different from 2014 nude beach, or maybe
the difference is in me.
The first time I walked up the hot hot sand and back
to my spot, I felt judged. The men, the boomer white men who are always there,
reminded me too much of my Trumpish uncle. In the midst of all this freedom and
diversity, they felt predatory and malevolent.
Yes, I’m nine years older and at least 50 pounds
heavier, but neither of those things make me feel less hot or more judged on a
day-to-day basis. But my perspective has changed, for good and for ill. It has
been such a long, long almost-decade.
It’s harder to feel good-humored about the boomer guy who’d
made himself tourguide of the surf, (Is it always the same guy or does it just
seem that way? BFF-Formerly-Sweetie says it’s probably a different same guy.) “reminding
me” that it’s important to splash my boobs before diving in so the cold water
won’t be too much of a shock. Dude, there’s SO MUCH internet. You don’t have to
do this!
Back at my towel, in the imaginary privacy of the
umbrella-shade, I was able to settle into my own skin a little more, to enjoy
my own nakedness. I took a selfie for the boys. I got gently turned on, but
then it ebbed into a more serene pleasure. I listened to the combining songs of
three or four different radios, until Beyonce’s Halo stood out. The song
of my Summer of Romance. (Sorry, Running Up That Hill. You’re very nice
too!) The song of kindness and pleasure and treasuring everyone, but especially
of treasuring myself.
My day at the nude beach was a lot. I
couldn’t concentrate for long to read either of my books or just gaze at the
sea. This was a beautiful adventure, but a sad one too-after all, so many of
the old nude-beach friends are gone from me, for life reasons or politics
reasons or both. And this will always be the place where I decided that Sweetie
and I needed to get a divorce.
I think I might prefer to be truly invisible on the
beach, in my cute auntie-style swimdress, more concerned with the dolphins and
the waves than with the humans. It was a moody-sweet drive home, so I put on
the moody-sweet playlist I just made for The Song Sender. I grieved for the
past and pleasantly longed for the characters of the present. I was glad to get
home.
