A Quiet Naked Sunday

Virginia Strong Newlin

No, I’ve never had the nerve to either, until one day on the Island I got up early. The sun was rapping on my eyelids, and, when I opened them, the sky was blue enough to dye a gray horse lavender. It was that blue, so I got up before my husband, David, and son, Rick, and went out on the porch to catch the media message of the day.

I was the only one to see it. Even the babies in the cottage next door weren’t up yet. When Rick was a baby, he was yelling by dawn. I’d stagger in, pluck him out of his wet diaper, carry him warm and squiggly back to my bed and snap him onto my breast. We weren’t at all embarrassed about loving each other’s body then. Now he’s a tall teenager and his own private property. I hadn’t seen him nude since he was ten.

—which brings me back to the media message. It was on a long streamer pulled by one of those dratted planes that have been flying along the beach this summer, ordering us to vote for the Governor or buy this or that for our jock itch. David curses them, Rick picks them off with a cocked finger, and I ignore. This time I laughed. Come to the suntannial at Grizzly Beach. Wear your birthday suit, it said. Right then I decided to go. For a number of reasons, I think. Plain curiosity, but, on a deeper level, I thought that there was something I’d been missing—beside the bares, of course—and something I needed to find out about myself.

Yes, David went too. I don’t think that’s so surprising. David’s not stuffy. It’s just that he eats lunch at the Princeton club and likes lawyer-length hair like his. I know he used to make jokes about Rick’s pony tail, but when he sang about buying a bunch of blue ribbons to tie up Rick’s bonnie brown hair, tra la, he was teasing me. I loved Rick’s hair long and curly, but he’s at college now and the styles have changed, of course.

Rick was coming downstairs when I stopped watching the scenery and went inside. His towel didn’t quite cover him. What are you, Rick, a centerfold? I asked, realizing, as he blushed and tugged himself together, that I had just spoken a toad. I’d embarrassed both of us, and why did either of us have to be, I wondered, as I got his suit off the line for him.

While we were eating waffles, I told the men about the plane and its message. Who do you suppose goes there? I asked. David said, A lot of punks. You’re a fossil, Dad, Rick said. Then Rick admitted he’d never been there either, and we all laughed.

About eleven, Rick drove off somewhere while David and I were still reading the paper. Let’s go to Grizzly Beach, I said, and David said, Someone might see us. Who? I asked. Bill Clinton. He wouldn’t care. David made some other objections which just meant he was scared. So was I, of course, but somehow I thought I should overcome that, that it was important to go to the nude beach now that I’d decided to, and I told David not to worry, we would wear bathing suits

So okay then, David said. I’m game if you are.

Frankly, I wasn’t all that game. I wore my suit, my beach coat, dark glasses and a sun hat and told myself that, even so, Rick would never believe it: those fuddy-duddies, his parents, going to the nude beach.

We walked there. David thought it made more sense to drive, but I reminded him that if we drove, we’d get there too soon and could leave too easily.

This isn’t a puberty rite, you know, dear, David said. You won’t flunk maturity if you don’t go.

But I want to go, I said, thinking that there was something I might flunk if I didn’t.

The walk there takes about forty minutes: around two headlands and the beach between and then beyond the rock jetty. We took our time. The day was beautiful, and for a Sunday, rather quiet. We saw nobody else walking our direction.

It was so quiet that we didn’t hear voices even when we got to the jetty. We didn’t know if there were bathers at Grizzly Beach or not. I wanted to avoid any sudden shocks so I stared at my feet as I climbed the jetty and jumped down to the sand on the other side. I saw my feet and David’s and an approaching pair of knobby ones—and then a bare behind.

There were some thirty nudes on the beach. Everything about them looked larger than life, but evidently nobody else felt that way. They appeared relaxed and casual. David and I, in our bathing suits, seemed to be the most conspicuous people there. We huddled on our towels, exposed by unexposure.

Some babe walked by, looked at my bikini and David’s trunks and tossed her head. Her right hand breast seemed to glare at me. David rolled his eyes heavenwards and hummed. I sifted piles of sand into what looked like assorted bosoms. I was the only woman in a bathing suit, and can you believe that some man looked me over and leered?

A group next to us were staring and muttering. They did not seem to like us. I suppose they thought we were prudes or snobs, when we were plain cowards. I didn’t like to be considered someone who would peek and pry and not meet honesty with honesty, so I said, David, I’m taking off my suit, and I unhooked my bra before I could change my mind.

Bravo, said a man in the group next to us. David stood up and removed his trunks. Somebody clapped. I hiked off the pants of my bikini. A round of cheers. I rolled onto my stomach, but David lay calm and courageous on his back. He complimented me on the becoming flush on my behind.

Oh god, let’s get in the water, I said.

I wanted to bolt, of course, but I made myself stroll to the ocean’s edge. I wrapped my arms around my chest, drew in my tummy, tucked in my tail, and wondered how many people were looking. Speaking about puberty rites, gauntlets, trials by fire, that walk outdid them all. I dove into the first wave, however large and cold, and came out on the other side, drunk with being naked in the sea. You know what it feels like. Your body slides through the water like a hot knife through butter. David looked blasé, but then he’s a product of boys’ camps.

We swam a long while, beyond the sand bar, along the beach, back again, out to the bar again, not wanting to quit, until my fingers began to look like vanilla taffies, and we were both very hungry.

We rode waves in to the beach, rolled in the surf with some other bares, and exchanged a word or two. I found I wasn’t embarrassed about my own or other people’s bodies, and I wondered why I’d ever been dependent upon a bathing suit. Nothing about us needs hiding, I was saying to myself, when I saw an attractive couple walking our direction. The girl was slender, long dark hair blowing around her breasts, long legs, everything tanned and neatly arranged. The boy was tall, green eyes, curly brown hair which two years ago he wore in a pony tail.

Run, said David. Walk, I said. We don’t want him to notice us.

Back on our towels, we tried to struggle into our suits. You know how hard that is when your body is wet and sandy. We wriggled and tugged and wriggled, and our suits stuck. Our neighbors, of course, laughed, so I smiled and waved, gracious as the Queen. In our suits at last, we grabbed our things and made for the jetty, hoping that, if we hurried home, Rick wouldn’t be sure it was us.

On the other side of the jetty, we started to sprint, but I had to stop to laugh.

We’re running scared by our only child, David, I said.

One of the barriers I want between me and my only child is underwear, Sara, David said, and he asked me if I didn’t too. At first I thought yes. Decency, I thought, privacy. Then I wondered what those things were. So I said, No, and David asked me please to consider what nudity would do to society.

How would you feel about a naked traffic cop? he asked.

I see what you mean, I said.

Could you revere a nun if you looked her in the tits?

Nudity will destroy the power structure perhaps, I suggested.

If you think Congress is going to strip, you’re crazy, David said.

I thought about that as we both panted up the last sand dune to our home.

While David went upstairs, I went into the kitchen to start lunch. I found the kettle on the stove, burbling, the table set with ham, cheese, bread and cups of steaming soup, Rick sitting there munching and reading the paper in his bathing trunks and sweatshirt. Who was it at Grizzly Beach then, I wondered.

Hi Rick, I said.

Hi Mom.

I asked him if he had had a nice swim, wanting to ask, where, you rotten kid. And he asked me if I had had a nice swim, in what I thought was a very suggestive manner. We both remarked that the water was cold but nice when you got in, very nice when you got in.

Mom, he said

Yes?

You’ve got a swell bod, Mom.

You’re not so bad yourself, Rick, I said, and rushed upstairs to tell David.

David, I said, throwing my arms around him, you’ve got a swell bod.

I do, don’t I, said David, looking pleased. And so do you and so does Rick and—wow-so does his girlfriend, he said, taking me in his arms. I kissed him, pulled off my bathing suit and stood in a patch of sunlight by the open window, throwing my arms wide to ocean and sky and sand.

I heard Rick’s voice from the doorway.

Your soup’s getting cold, Godiva.

Don’t get smart, kid, called David.

I turned to smile, first at David and then at Rick and saw, strolling towards the shower, a smooth tanned torso and a dear, not so familiar, at one time well powdered, bare behind
--looking quite relaxed really.

* * *

Biography for Virginia Strong Newlin: Over the years, I’ve been lucky enough to publish some articles, fiction, biography, and poetry, but as far as that goes, I hit my peak when I was eight years old with several poems in Springside School’s Chestnut Burr. Springside School is in Chestnut Hill, Philadelphia. My two sisters, my mother, and I all went there. It is in Chestnut Hill, where I grew up, that this poem-autobiography is set.

Your editor, Kate Lydon, and I share the joys and laughter and surprising insight of being writers and poets together.