Heart's Desire

Grandest Desire: to own property where I could walk around naked outside without fear. My dream was realized when we bought "The Lakehouse": 5-1/4 acres of country privacy. We live on half of a long, stringbean-shaped peninsula. The property right next door has been abandoned for several years now. We tried to buy it, but the owner wants way too much money. I'm sure there's a buyer out there, and we'll have a neighbor someday. But, until then, we enjoy the ultimate in privacy. Both neighbors on either side of the coves are owners who don't use their properties much, so the only intruders to watch for are the fisherpeople, boaters and jetskiers.

I have always liked being naked outside. I think I first realized this in my early twenties after wrestling with low self-esteem and body image issues. I think I have always felt and looked fat to myself. As a small child, I was skinny with stick legs. As a teenager, I developed a pot belly. At twenty, I tried working beyond it by wearing more revealing clothes. It was the 70's, and less was more. "Hair" was hot, and naked was "in". "Free Love" was in the air and on the mind of every hippy or hippy-wannabe. I fell into the latter catagory.

I moved to Albuquerque, NM when I was twenty-seven, and my son, Chris, was six. I felt the strongest urge to get away from my home and everyone I knew because I felt lost in trying to be what everyone else wanted me to be. I didn't know who I was anymore.

I grew up acting like the "good girl": always doing what I was told; never speaking my mind, but obeying without question. As the oldest of twelve children, I became the father substitute because my father worked more than one job and I had his temper. My mother also worked, so I babysat a lot. Again, I did what was expected of me, but I hated it. I just wanted to be a kid and a teenager. I didn't want to be a parent.

At seventeen, I sat in the Burger King in Waltham, MA with my friends, Pat and Kathy, and remember telling them I wanted to try everything in life at least once. That's when I started questioning everything and testing the waters of rebellion.

After high-school graduation, I went to New York City for a week with my friends, Shirley and Dana. We had fake I.D.'s and spent most every night at a club in Greenwich Village. We liked it so much, that we made friends and started going around there during the day. We went to the apartment of a few of those new friends, and when we told them that we were still virgins at eighteen, they treated us like we had leprosy. I knew I had to remedy that situation. Shortly after getting home, a bunch of us rented a room at the Suisse Chalet on Route 2 in Cambridge and that's where I cheered when I saw the blood-stained sheets of my newly declared womanhood.

Long story short: sex, drugs; rock 'n roll ensued, and I became an unwed mother at twenty. It was not socially acceptable to breastfeed in public, so whenever my baby got hungry, I was banished to our bedroom. It always felt like a punishment to not just continue to visit while I fed my baby. I knew somehow that this would probably be the only baby I bore, so I wanted to experience as much as I could. Breastfeeding was "a must". I could be discreet, and hated society's hangups over bare breasts. Needless to say, this experience became much too stressful and restrictive, so I started pumping and feeding him from a bottle. After I was sure he got the nourishment he needed from my breast milk, I started feeding him formula, and found some freedom.

It wasn't until we moved to New Mexico, and I met Kate, that I was encouraged to explore outdoor nudity. It was 1976 and I met Kate at the University of New Mexico in my Freshman year. I discovered a freedom there I had never known. It was a freedom that shot me to my core, and I knew I had to incorporate this into my lifestyle somehow.

My cousin reminded me today about our family reunion in Newton, Massachusetts in 1976 where as night fell, I wanted to go "skinny dipping" in our swimming pool. I'm confused now about the timing of my nudity exploits because I know the paragraph above throws this dateline off. Be that as it may, I was the first to strip down and convinced my friends to do likewise. A little cousin saw us and "snitched" to my parents. My father came bounding out after turning off the pool lights, and I found myself standing naked in front of him at twenty-seven; head hung feeling like I was five-years-old, while he yelled at me in front of everyone. The party ended after that. But not my desire to be naked outside. I just had to learn a comfort level with it.

Much later, after moving back to Massachusetts, I enjoyed vacationing on Martha's Vineyard where my mother had purchased a number of timeshare units. I used one of those weeks by myself, just to see if I could vacation alone. I went to what was then, Gay Head, and saw a shopkeeper who looked like a hippy. I heard there was a nude beach there and asked her if she could tell me where to find it. She sternly questioned my motivation because voyeurs were rampant. Assured I was not one of those, she explained how to get there. I can no longer visit the Vineyard without at least one trip to that beach.

In those days, families romped naked together out in the open: grandmothers with sagging breasts and bellies; mothers, fathers and little children all playing together. It was so European. I loved it. I remember, when it was allowed, playing in a clay pool at the base of the famous cliffs with little kids: smearing my body with orange and yellow clay to then lay on the sand, baking it dry, then diving in the ocean to wash it off. It was the most exhilarating experience of my life. I knew this was how life should be, and I was sad for people who could not feel this childlike, innocent freedom.

Over the years, as I got older and fatter, I went there just to feel normal. Nobody cared what your body looked like. Everyone was accepted. It was so harmonious. I had the highest self esteem at that time. As my own breasts and belly sagged with age, I decided I would be a role model for others with low self-esteem and body image like those grandmothers were for me. I would demonstrate that we are all beautiful, no matter what our bodies look like. I would feel that childlike acceptance and let it shine through me for anyone with eyes to see.

I continue to feel that way, but must admit it is more difficult to do. As a society, we are so hung up over nudity. It is a sad state of affairs, that we do not grow beyond the negativity associated with nakedness. I believe it is one of the main contributing factors to sexually unacceptable and inappropriate behaviors and attitudes.

Yesterday, I went skinny dipping in the lake. I woke up feeling a strong need to do it. It had been a long time. I lay there in bed wrestling with myself over whether or not I should do it. I got angry and just did it anyway. That's how I deal with fear: I force myself to do it anyway. Whatever IT is. In that way, fear has no control over me. I can still be the "free spirit" for ME, no matter how old I get. It is most important to me now to keep doing this as I approach the age of sixty-one.

So, this beautiful lakehouse is one of my greatest "Heart's Desires". It is my dream home where nudity reigns and personal freedom still lives. Yes, I watch out for men on the lake and don't flaunt in front of people. But there are plenty of opportunities to do what I want, so I thank God every day for this blessing. What is your dream; your "Heart's Desire"? Do you have it yet? If not, why not? Life is short. Live it fully. What else is there that matters anyway?