Beach Blog!

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When we began our trip I made a distinct effort to see as many museums as possible. I wanted to learn everything about everything that I wouldn't have been able to learn about at home. Truthfully, anybody could probably learn much about anything from the comfort of their PC, but one might not come into contact with certain information if not given direction by an external source. I feel the same way about post-secondary education. By the age of 18, you should be able to adopt the Will Hunting philosophy and learn whatever you so choose with a $6 library card. However, we all visit our local library far too seldom, and for those of us that do choose to pay for post-secondary education, we are not so much paying for the knowledge as we are the professor's perspective, the neatly packaged curriculum, and the organization of many minds. That being said then, it should weigh heavy upon any student that decides to skip class while saying, “I'll get the notes online.”

But in the course outline of life, there are neither ordered notes, nor curricula. We attempt to organize minds and thought the best we can through government, but it's often messier than the classroom. And both fathers and mothers will do their best to construct a curriculum for their children, but the lesson plans will often vary. Some commonly shared lesson plans might include washing one's hands, throwing a ball, singing, counting, or riding a bicycle. And as we grow older our self-constructed lesson plans might include different things like watching a cheaply made Kung Fu movie, learning how to win pogs, or developing the ultimate KD recipe. Arguably, many of us consider these lessons outside the classroom (learned both young and old) to be just as valuable, if not more, than any arithmetic learned growing up.

For myself, one lesson I learned most recently was what it felt like to swim in the ocean. I took swimming lessons when I was a kid, but being from the prairies, I swum almost exclusively in the nearby lakes. It was not until recently in San Jose, Spain, that I first swam in the ocean. And I knew that there was salt in the ocean; this was not new to discover. But it was new to taste. And like many things in life, it's different once you try it.

After San Jose, the beach became something we sought after. We went to Nice and decided one day to visit the beach. We were on the bus on our way to the destination when we noticed the couple in front of us also equipped with beach supplies. They were preparing to get off the bus, so we thought we would follow them since they likely knew the way better than we did. We descended down a long staircase past a domestic castle (these have yet to become normal for me) and finally after much descent arrived upon a very beautiful beach - a very, naked, beautiful beach. In fact, to be precise, I can tell you that out of roughly twenty people, there was not one man wearing any clothing. Well, I certainly wasn't going to hike back up the stairs and get back on the bus and go home and say, “Yeah, the beach wasn't for me.” Nope. And I wasn't going to be psycho-analyzed as if I had something to hide. So, off came the shorts and I let a little sunshine go where it had never gone before.

For anyone reading this, I hope you are either donning a smile or a face that is somewhat squeamish. It is fun to laugh at the cliché of visiting a nude beach while on a European adventure. But if you are frowning, I would invite you to run a bath and climb in with your shorts on. Then, think about how much better it would feel if you were lacking shorts and multiply that feeling by 100. True enough, there are more serious questions that can be brought forth by considering the conscious choice of nudity. And most of those questions will pertain to the nudist: “Will I invite my friends here? Or do I only invite certain friends? Maybe I shouldn't bring friends; maybe I should come alone.” Something that is at first frivolous and silly can quickly escalate to a serious question of identity (both sexual and spiritual) that is likely to be either all together embraced, or all together rejected. But, if you are a tourist, you have the luxury of not worrying about what your visit to the naked beach meant to a bunch of strangers. Instead, you can lie unclothed and simply imagine how much more complicated this whole event would be if you lived nearby.

But I was talking about salt. That was how this ocean discussion started. My first lesson was to discover what the ocean tasted like. My second lesson was in nudity. My third lesson was discovering how easy it is to do a starfish in the water. Admittedly, when I was a tike, I was not the champion of the swimming class. I wasn't drowning, but by the time I got out of the pool I wanted to lay on the wet tiles and just die at an early age. In a salty ocean though, I felt as though I had to try less than half as hard to not drown. In fact, I could float on my back with my feat poking up above the lapping waves and just stare at the sun without doing nearly anything at all. I would only turn to curse the salty water when my blissful state became interrupted by a rude splash of brine into my mouth. The taste made me nauseous. Luckily I did not have to experience being sick in front of a beach full of people.

Anyhow, there I would lay floating farther and farther out into the Mediterranean. One afternoon as I did this I suddenly felt the light change around me. The color of the water changed. And right below me, seemed to be moving, a dark crescent shape much, much bigger than me. In fact, all I could think about in this instance were sharks or, whales. This shadow looked big enough to swallow me. I panicked. I didn't scream but I started to hyperventilate a little bit and swim towards the shore. I felt helpless. A few minutes later after a bit more rational thought and the uneventful non-whale sightings it became obvious that the whole thing was an illusion. I laughed to myself, slightly embarrassed, “Thought you were gonna get swallowed by a whale. Right...” In this area of the ocean you can see colors of turquoise and bright blue from above. The colors will suddenly change as though fitting into puzzle pieces of navy, green, and black. Floating on the water I was not familiar with what it felt like to float over these color changes.

The taste of salty water, the ability to float in it, to see the colors change around you and return to your sandy point in the sun with nothing to hide - it has been some time since I felt so vulnerable. But happy, and honest. Upon the corner of that nude beach just outside of Nice resides a small home with an elderly couple that live there. There home cannot be cheap, as in, I'm sure it would have cost somewhere in the range of one to five million euro. But it was very small, and yet being there helped me to understand why they would trade luxury, space and ease of transport, it all, for there little home. They were in paradise. And I for one hold the belief that this was not their vacation life - this life went down to the roots of what those people valued as an everyday necessity of their world. In seeing their home that day, I completed my small glimpse into what ocean life can mean for some.

tim

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Photos

nude beach, Nice
From this height you can see the home of the elderly couple in the upper right corner.

Comments

[karen]

In search of summer European Destination
I'm looking for a few places in Europe to visit with my 22 year old son, who is currently studying in England. He's visited Paris, while on spring break, but wants to return to France to see old friends he met. I've heard Nice is awesome and from your pics, it looks sweet! We were hoping to find some places in France that had some relaxing beaches... with any "tiki bars"?... And is there any nightlife that both young and old (I'm not that old!) would enjoy? Any other suggestions on other places you've been in Europe that would be for seeing the sites (nature and museums) and lots of pubs or cafes to relax as well? Also, if you have suggestions about Tuscany area for the same ideas, I'd love to hear them!! Have fun!

[Brian Taylor - British Naturism]

Well done!
Thank you for publishing an honest account of your first experience of naturism. Your's is a pretty typical story and is how a lot of naturists first discovered how pleasant it is. I particularly liked your challenge: "I would invite you to run a bath and climb in with your shorts on. Then, think about how much better it would feel if you were lacking shorts" and I agree with multiplying it 100 fold. You are right to say that something at first frivolous can quickly escalate to a serious question of identity - it challenges our prejudices and ultimately our perception that we 'have' to wear clothes. It pretty quickly feels normal not to, as well as more comfortable. I'm guessing you are from America, so you might like to look up AANR when you return and find out how you can continue to enjoy naturism in the US. Best of luck on your adventures and have fun!