Sorry, I'm busy laying out in the hot, hot sun

Morning internet! I know posting has been light and weird this week. I've been on a plane for most of it, traveling between Portland and home and San Diego (where I am currently) and will be home again after the weekend. My body isn't quite sure what to make of such drastic climate changes since I went from arctic temperatures last weekend to tropical ones for the past two days. Let's just say basking in 80+ degree weather is my preference. San Diego has effectively kicked winters ass, and for that we thank thee. Though I do believe I'm scaring off the natives with my pale, PALE skin, a problem I'll attempt to solve by laying by the pool this afternoon. I'll think of you all slaving behind your desks as I sip a margarita with my sister.

So here, to tide you over until next week, is a story I'm working on for submission to a magazine. It's the first cut, rough, and will go through endless edits and sessions of me tearing my hair out and moaning, "I HATE WRITING" until it becomes something worth sending off for further abuse by an editor. But enjoy! It's about me flashing an entire family, so that should be the right thing to send you all into your weekend with! Don't say I don't love you.

You would think that eleven miles into the back country would afford one the opportunity to be nude without an audience. I have never been one to take my clothes off in front of people, eschewing strip poker in my college days and changing underneath my towel in the ladies locker room, but here, where sighting a bear would be more probable than another human being, I was feeling brave.

And dirty.

My husband, Marc, and I had hiked for what seemed like a small eternity through the eastern sierras, on what was intended to be a romantic weekend. But, as was often the case, we had miscalculated either the distance or our tendency to break for snacks and had hiked until dark, our headlamps lighting the last few miles into a canyon and our lakeside destination. We didn’t even break open the wine over dinner, our conversation consisting of grunts and vague hand gestures. Instead, we ingested a cold meal and fell asleep in our bags wearing the same clothes we had been hiking in all day.

This was unprecedented for Marc who is one of the cleanest human beings alive. He showers at least twice daily when we’re at home and I’ve seen him dive into lakes with ice still clinging to the edges when we’re backpacking or climbing. He’ll take the few moments of discomfort to ensure his cleanliness and then spends the rest of the evening lording it over his filthy companions. While the rest of us contend with flies buzzing around our heads and crusty pants, he revels in his ablutions.

Regardless, here we were, many miles from civilization, and the grime of the previous day had developed an unpleasant layer of grime that even I, the non ice diving sort, could deal with. Marc had succumbed to altitude sickness and so had decided to spend the morning in his sleeping bag, hoping to stave off vomiting by remaining prone and very, very still.

I wandered down to the lakes edge, my feet happy to be out of my boots and in the flip-flops I always carried despite Marcs argument that they were only extra weight. I found a small cove not far from our camp, the beach surrounded on three sides by a 20 foot granite wall baking in the sun. A small bush pushed up through the sand, insistent upon survival even though we were close to being above the tree line.

It seemed like adequate cover. We hadn’t seen a person since the previous day, and they had been hiking out, complaining of the endless uphill slog that we had ahead of us. So I stripped down and happily waded knee deep into the cold water. My skin pimpled immediately against the chill and I quickly tossed water about in an effort to distract myself from the onset of hypothermia.

My feet and lower legs had numbed and the feeling of water on my dirty body was immensely painful, but satisfying. I stood, looking out over the lake, enjoying both the feeling of the hot sun on my skin and the absolute quiet. The view across the lake was stunning, with 13K foot peaks across the way, snow still clinging to their slopes.

“GAH! DAD! THERE IS A NAKED WOMAN DOWN THERE!” suddenly tore across the water from overhead and my head jerked up quickly from my reverie. There, on top of the granite wall surrounding my private cove stood a small boy, perhaps seven or eight, his eyes wide and very much focused on my bare frame. Instinctively, I ducked down into the water, hoping for cover and gasping as the lower half of my body submerged completely.

His father and another son came into view within moments. The three of them stared down at me, a strange sight I’m sure as I was savagely gripping my breasts and hoping that the clear water was covering up the other important parts. The father was frozen in his surprise, not having intended a father/son weekend to become an anatomy lesson. I was panicked, rooted, wondering if perhaps I was going to have to live, squatted in this position for forever. Then, moved by the Siberian cold and an aggressive leg cramp, I rose out of the water and scampered the 20 feet across the beach to take cover behind the little bush that stood proudly between the four of us.

It was an endless distance, my mortification increasing as I stubbed my toe on a rock and skipped the last ten feet on one foot before diving behind the bush. My plan failed miserably, as its spindly branches offered scant protection, the family now getting a rather bizarre view of my behind as I hunched with my back to them.

The father finally gathered himself and said, “Come on boys…let’s get going!” and started to move his sons up the trail. It would appear, however, that the path traversed the top of the cove, so they were in sight for a few, desperately uncomfortable moments, their necks craning to keep me in sight for as long as possible. You can’t blame them. With the shape I was in, my hair poking out in every direction and strangely sunburned limbs, I’m sure I looked as though I had just come out of the bush, or had recently fought a wild-a-beast and lost.

The family dropped out of sight. I stayed crouched behind the shrub for a while longer, their voices still audible, the water carrying their comments clearly to me.

“What do you think she was doing?”
“Dad, do you think she lives here?”
“That’s the first naked lady I’ve ever seen!”

Clearly, it was a landmark day for all of us. I felt bad for the son whose first experience of nudity was this one. From what I understand, those things tend to stay with you and to see a filthy woman running and skipping across a sandy cove doesn’t seem like the event that good wet dreams are made of.

But, you know, whatever I can do to help.