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Going Naked (29/60)



Oh man, I'm tired.

I want to tell you I slept well, but I didn't.  I was a wee bit worried about my mama and so sleep did not come until the wee hours of the morning and even then, it was far from restful.  I tried to do yoga but somehow always ended up in shavasana (corpse pose . . . flat on your back with your arms and legs relaxed) after every sun salutation (I only did two).  So I bowed to my body and just stayed there.  It felt wonderful.

I went on my nightly bike ride but I seriously could barely peddle.  I just tooted along slow and steady and watched this huge bomb like cloud grow bigger and bigger in the east.

It looks like a mushroom cloud doesn't it?  Maybe a little?


I let my mind wonder and go where it would and over and over again, I thought back on my days at the beach and at the pool here.  Everywhere I go, people are mostly naked; old and young, fit and flabby, and they all seem, without a doubt, to me all gloriously beautiful.  Watching the tiny children run and jump and laugh and tumble over in the wave, their hair every which way and their mothers and fathers, sandy and wild hair running in with them, often getting tossed around as well, they are just having fun.  They are not worried about looking good or anything other than being together and enjoying this exact moment.  The rest of us watch them and enjoy their antics (mostly because there is a plague of seaweed at the beaches . . . you have to clear a space and it smells and swimming . . . ick and blah . . . I attempted, it did not go well) and remember what it's like to be young.

This beach has a little slice of every age and stage and I love them all.  I'm not sure what it is about the beach but almost everyone there smiles and waves and often stops to chat with me as I sit alone at the beach.  I have not felt once that they were either summing up my parts or taking apart my parts, I've just seen them smile into my eyes.  Old and young.  Just happy to be in a beautiful place with smiling strangers that they'd like to make their friends.  And they are this way to everyone.

I sat at the beach today, my five baby belly, my extra layers and my sagging everything and thought, I am part of this gorgeous human family.  We are all different . . . and that's wonderful.  We start out tiny and grow and then . . . shrink again.  We run learn to walk and run and then walk again and sometimes . . . we crawl again.  It's ok.  All stages have challenges and worries and fears and all stages are beautiful.

I am not 16, 22, 33 anymore.  I am in my 40s and I am not sad.  At first, I was horrified the wrinkles and sagging, but I don't know what happened or when it happened, but now I'm just happy there isn't more.  And even when there are, I just feel happy to be in this skin of mine.  Those wrinkles are 43 years of smiles and laughter and some tears and sorrow thrown in.  But that's ok.  It's part of this life--it extracts a little tithe for the years.  I find myself more and more willing to pay it for the experiences I get to have.

And I am reminded to be happy and content and feel gratitude and joy in this moment, this exact stage I am in.  And I am.



I am also getting Florida skin because I am out on the porch and it's 82 and I had this thought, Hey, it's kind of chilly out here.

I hope this means my run will go better tomorrow . . .
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