Woman in motion

The second day of the conference, my roommate went running early and then came back to take a shower. I could tell from the clothes she’d laid out on the bed that she had something important going on: an interview, a meeting, something that required her to dress formally. But still, the morning light that shone in the window was lovely, just right for a photograph, so when she emerged naked from the bathroom, I said to her, “Could you just climb up on the window ledge for a moment?”

She looked at the camera in my hand and laughed. “I only have a few minutes,” she said. I took that as a yes, and began moving furniture, yanking a lamp out of the way. Maine Writer climbed, obligingly, up onto the window sill.

“Try a yoga pose,” I called out.

“Like bridge?” she asked, leaning back to flex her back into an arch, “This ledge is kind of narrow, but maybe I could — aah!”

Maybe there’s a reason that yoga studios have a wide flat floor instead of a bunch of narrow ledges. My naked roommate tumbling to the floor wasn’t exactly the shot I had in mind for my blog. After all, posing naked is supposed to be empowering. I figured if she ended up in a cast, that would undermine the whole project. Plus, make her late for her interview. We didn't want that.

“Um, maybe this time you should brace yourself with your hands,” I said helpfully. “Take up the whole window.”

Maine Writer is a strong woman, who was not at all daunted by the fall. Brushing the carpet lint off her bare skin, she climbed back into the window and flexed her muscles, like a deity holding up the world.



Read more about the history of the naked blogging project and check out the gallery of photos.