WWhen I was 15, I grew nine inches in nine months. My bones ached at night. I quickly got out of my clothes, revealing my skinny ankles under my blue jeans. I went from being of average height to towering over everyone in the class.
I was already uncomfortable in my own skin. I grew up in the US in the late 70s and my body type was not fashionable. I was curvy in places that weren't marked, with thighs and butt that made themselves known in ways that made me uncomfortable. I was a teenager when I first started dieting, and women's criticism of their bodies and the bodies of others quickly became a constant refrain of my youth.
I carried the message into adulthood that my body was flawed and needed to be controlled. Until one summer when I was in my early 30s. I was divorced and my two children spent the summer with their father at his home in Europe. I worked a demanding job and rarely took time off, but a friend talked me into traveling with him from my home in Seattle to a country fair in Oregon. We were recovering alcoholics and I wasn't sure I'd go to a three-day music fair in the middle of nowhere, but I figured we'd be good together—he'd been sober longer than I had.
I'm not much of an outdoor enthusiast, but my friend and I set up a tent at the performers' campground with his friends, the acrobats and circus performers. We lived in the forest for several days, listening to music and staying up late by the fire. When they finished their public performances, we were joined by the artists, who played their instruments and sang. My friend and I, the only sober ones in the group, smoked a lot of cigarettes.
The women were strong, acrobats, and uninhibited. Communication with them changed me. The food suddenly tasted better. I remember a sunny day when I walked along a forest path to a stall that sold muesli with berries, and felt a warm surge of sweetness in my mouth. My shoulders relaxed. I felt my feet touch the ground in a new way, the smell of the fire permeating my hair and clothes. I was an unpublished writer working on a novel late at night while my kids were asleep. But this was the first time I spent extended time with other artists, and it was intoxicating. It was like a backstage pass to a paradise I never knew existed.
I remember I was going to take a shower – there was a private stall, but you had to pay money for it, and everyone used the public shower. I resisted, expecting memories of awkward ablutions in gym class in my youth.
Try it, people said. It's magical.
With some trepidation, I took off all my clothes and stepped out onto a large wooden platform in the open air. We were surrounded by trees, blue sky, warm air. Shower taps, towers with many jets, rose above the platform every few feet, and there were so many people there – about 50 people – all showering without seeing a shred of clothing. No one seemed embarrassed: the deep hippie atmosphere of the festival extended to this space; young, old, any body type, race, gender. In that moment spent together in the forest, we were just people, stripped of the cultural symbols of clothing.
I lathered my skin, feeling deeply relieved. Two of his friends, all naked, carried the young man, who could not walk, to an open area under the tap. I could see from his face that he felt the same freedom and hospitality. His body, too, was just one more of the many manifestations of human existence.
For me, it was a deeply spiritual moment and the beginning of a spiritual practice of honoring my body as a means of connection, understanding, pleasure and guidance.
I'm 62 now, and this perspective has helped me come to terms with how age changes the body. I don't diet anymore; I enjoy the rush of sweetness from the raspberries growing in my garden when I put them in my mouth under the summer sun. I'm grateful that my body can still guide me through the water like an arrow, swimming strong and far. I have two young grandchildren, and I hope they grow up with a different refrain: that our bodies are different, and that's wonderful.
