Caught Naked

Last night I was enjoying the spray of my nightly shower when I heard it.

"Mommy!!!" And with the "Mommy" came a lot of of loud wailing.

Oh. It had been so long since Tildy woke up in the middle of the night and interrupted my alone time. This used to be our nightly ritual. She would wake up and cry outside the bathroom door until I let her in. And Geoff, of course, sleeps through it all.

I have learned to ignore her cries. Call me cold-hearted, but she has always cried so much for me that I've learned to mute her sound. So I went on with my hot, massaging shower, pretending it was still peaceful alone time.

And suddenly I realized, I was no longer alone in the bathroom. Tildy was now able to reach the doorknob and had opened the door herself!

So I wrapped up the shower, pulled the curtain open, and began toweling off. Her crying died off since she was now in my godlike presence. And then I really looked at Tildy and she was looking at me intensely. Not a look like she was content to be with me.

She was checking me out. "So this is what Mom has been hiding under all those warm winter garments..." And I suddenly felt very uncomfortable and quickly wrapped up in my towel.

It's not that I intentionally avoid exposing myself to Tildy, I think it's just been awhile since she's had opportunity, since I do normally groom while she is otherwise occupied (sleeping). I do avoid changing in front of the boys. They are of an age where they are very interested in bodily functions and I'd just as soon leave them in wonder as long as possible.

Now, my Dad, he was a naturalist. He thought nothing of being naked in front of his daughters. It's not like he flaunted it or was inappropriate. It just was. Sometimes it's hard to avoid nakedness.

I have always been a fairly modest person. And I wonder why.

If I were to explain my beliefs on nudity, I would SAY that I have no problem with nudity. The human body is beautiful. We all have one. It assists us tremendously in day-to-day life with things like breathing and walking, and talking. We take ourselves for granted, our wonderful bodies that do so much for us. And so I don't know why it is hard for me to proudly flaunt it.

I was once a modern dancer. I trained my body so it would do what I wanted in front of large groups of people often clothed in not very much. You get used to anything after a while. But once I was in a dance piece where the choreographer wanted us to wear white unitards that were about twenty years old. Now think about how a white unitard looks on the average human. And then think about how an old, white, see-through unitard might look on an average human. At the dress rehearsal which was in front of a live choir, most of us performers choose to slip something on underneath. I think I wore a nude colored leotard to mask my belly button outline. But not my friend, Heather. She was someone comfortable in her own skin. Heather decided to show this choreographer exactly what she was asking for. The choreographer watched our run-through. I'm sure everyone watched Heather. The costuming was changed for the actual performance.

Despite the fact that everyone has a body, nudity is a distraction.

I guess it's because we are all so different?

I think the recreation center in our city has it about right. They have always asked that boys over four years of age use the same sex dressing room. This can cause problems when your five-year old boy tries out the male locker room for the first time all by himself. You know when you meet your child outside and he is still in a swimsuit, that something is amiss. But luckily the front desk supplies a male assistant to aid in tracking down discarded clothing in the maze of lockers. But it does seem like at about this age, the differences start to be apparent.

Fat, thin, short, long, dark, light, loose, muscular, sunburned, wrinkly, freckly, stretch-marked, birth-marked, pock-marked, tattooed - the differences are there.

And so the differences must be hidden. Why do we hide nakedness in the US like we are ashamed until a naked body becomes a commodity? I mean I'm sure we have all looked at National Geographic growing up. In many other cultures where the climate is more friendly and women are nursing all the time, everyone is basically naked.

And in our country, nursing in public can cause a protest.

We could all take a lesson from Tildy. "I want to be naked," she announces, and she strips off her clothes and happily runs around the backyard.

When does this change? When do we learn that our body is something to veil?

Is it when we are four and watch the array of grown-up bodies quickly changing in the YMCA locker room?

Is it when we are eight and visit our aunt for a week and notice that everyone in the aunt's family closes the bathroom door when they use the toilet?

Is it when we are eleven and streak from the clothesline to the house in a towel and receive a lecture from our Mom?

Is it when we are 16 and begin to classify those who reveal too much skin into a subcategory?

Is it when we are 39 and realize that our body is starting to experience gravitational pull, and may no longer be an attractive sight?

Once long ago, I had the opportunity to lay on a flat rock in an isolated canyon in the summertime. The sun was filtered and warm and I was with people I loved and trusted. I allowed some vitamin D to absorb into my bare chest, and it felt great! I didn't sunbathe so long that I burned; just long enough that I had an experience. I vowed that I would sunbathe topless more in the future.

And I never did again.

Maybe it is time.