Nude Sunbathing in November

I’m sort of a contradiction when it comes to clothing. I wear long sleeve shirts 365 days a year, even in triple digit heat. I wear a wide brim hat when I’m outside and I almost never wear shorts. There have been time I’ve dressed to go to the gym after work and my co-workers squealed with delight making fun of my whiteness. I’m blind! I’m blind! The glare from your legs! I tell them I think it’s funny when fat people make fun of me right before I hit the gym, and that pretty much ends it. But I am the whitest white man you’ll ever see.

When I know I’ll be out with asphalt all day long I’ll usually cover my face with a mask I’ve made for just such a purpose. I’ll sometimes wear cotton gloves. People freak out to see someone out near asphalt that is three hundred degrees, in weather that’s pushing triple digits, and here’s this guy all covered up from head to toe. I’m almost vampirish in my aversion to sunlight. Too much of the stuff for too long and very bad things begin to happen to the human body, even if does take a long time for it to happen.

Back when I was much younger and far less sober, I would wear as few clothes as legally possible. Back when I was a kid we never wore anything our parents didn’t make us wear, and I can remember stripping down to nothing and running around the fields, just to see how it felt. I was an uninhibited little kid when it came to nudity and I still am, to a degree.

I had an apartment in Tifton Georgia that had five huge windows facing South. During January, the early morning light would pour through the windows like a massive proton flood. My girlfriend and I would move all the furniture away from the middle of the floor, throw a blanket down, and sunbathe nude. It was very strange. The bedroom, and the rest of the apartment would be cold but right there on the floor it was like being on the beach. We had some good times on that floor, I tell you.

Sunday I went out and chopped up some of the massive branches left over from the death of two trees this Summer just to warm up a bit. The temperature was down near forty and I felt truly cold for the first time this season. An old Chinese proverb tells us, and quite truthfully, that a man who chops his own firewood is warmed twice by it. Using the axe warmed me up very nicely indeed and when I went back inside the whole house seemed to be a lot warmer than when I left. Both back doors were open to let in the sunlight, and it occurred to me that the door back down in the Southwest corner of the house, was letting in enough sunlight to lie in. I got out a towel, took off my clothes and lay naked in the sun.

This is a feeling that I had forgotten, and I had forgotten how good it felt. The mutts crowded me. Mike, why are you lying naked on the floor? Snuffle, snuffle, snuffle. I shooed them away and enjoyed the sun. The sunlight in November is a lot different than the direct and killing sun of July or August. Thirty minutes in the blast of the Lizard Sun of the Summer is more than enough to burn alabaster skin to bright pink, or medium rare red. But November is a little easier on the hide, and it feels wonderfully free and relaxing. The phone rings but I ignore it. How to explain to someone you’re inside sunbathing nude? I won’t bother. I turn over to my back to moon the sun and as I lay there frying I start to doze a little. It’s been many years since I slept in the sun and it does occur to me that if I did fall asleep the sun would move away from the doorway long before it became a funny oh my god how sunburned I got story.

All I can hear is the sound of cows lowing in the distance, the mutts roaming the back yard, and the sound of birds in the trees. My back becomes very warm but it’s a toasty feeling, devoid of pain or discomfort. I can feel my body soaking up the Sun’s heat. This is why lizards bask. This is why reptiles refused to evolve away from being cold blooded. This is heaven. I turn over again and now I know the Sun will be leaving me soon. But I leave all my tasks for the day undone while the Sun visits with me for yet a little while longer. I haven’t had a tan, or a tan line in years but this might just brown me a little. Vitamin D, I tell myself, this is a good way to get vitamin D. The sun seems to throw extra hear and light my way as she begins to drift too far west and a shadow begins to edge into the door, looking for a handout, and hoping to stay the night.

I get dressed and get back to life again. I feel strangely recharged and alive. My skin tingles with energy. I let the Sun inside my body and now I feel like if I stepped into a dark room I would glow, but not with the unearthly white of the covered man, but the warm reflected light of the Sun herself.

Take Care,

 Mike