Reaching for the sky

Our conference last weekend was held on a campus the size of a small city, nestled into a desert ecosystem. The walkways, shaded by tall arrays of solar panels, were crowded with students who are seemed to be in constant motion: walking, running, zooming by on skateboards, or weaving through on bicycles. Amidst this swirl of young energy, we conference folks gathered outside an art gallery to drink wine, meet new colleagues, and find old friends.

I'd been at the party for about twenty minutes before someone asked, "Who's going to pose naked for you this year?"

I looked at Sky Woman. We hadn't seen each other in a few years and were in the midst of catching up. "Want to pose?" I asked. I wasn't even sure if she remembered the project, but she grasped the point quickly.

"Naked?" she asked. "Sure."
 That's the level of cooperation I like to see in a friend.

"I just can't get arrested," Sky Woman said. "Or at least, if I get arrested, I need to be out of jail and on a plane on Sunday. I don't want to miss my plane."

"We're white, middle-aged women," I said. "We won't get arrested."
 "That's true," she said. "We're invisible. We can use that to our advantage."

We decided to meet early Saturday morning before the sunlight became harsh. I asked Local Friend, who worked on campus, if she knew of a private place where we could take a discreet nude photo. She said, "I can't think of any. There are always people around. We have 90,000 students."

She said helpfully, "But if you get arrested, call me. I'm good for bail." That was reassuring.

I'd seen a place earlier that I thought was worth exploring. It wasn't exactly private. In fact, it might well be the most famous building on campus. My roommate and I had walked past it every day, and we called it the Fancy Cupcake Building. Huge and circular, it was a performing arts center designed by Frank Lloyd Wright.

When we met up Saturday morning, Sky Woman said she loved the idea of posing with such a famous building. And the campus, as we walked along, seemed surprisingly quiet. Perhaps all 90,000 students were still asleep.

As we walked, we talked about the grey hair and wisdom that comes with age. "I have no fucks left to give," she said. "It's very freeing. I wish I could give that feeling to younger women."

Sunlight shone on the long curving walkway that led up into the building. About halfway up, we paused. We had a great view of the campus, with parking lots below us. Sky Woman stripped off her clothes and began stretching in the sun.

"I think yoga is paying off," she called out. The sunlight bounced off the building, off her skin.

"Woo hoo!" Someone yelled from the parking lot. We both looked down. Cars were pulling in, perhaps to begin their workday. A woman had stepped from her station wagon, and she raised both arms in what we could only assume was an encouraging cheer.

Sky Woman laughed and reached toward the deep blue sky. I snapped the photo.

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

The naked splashing woman

Every fall, I join women friends for a weekend retreat in the mountains. We bring food, and books, and stories about our lives. We dance by the fire, give each other massages, and hike through gorgeous fall foliage. This year was no different. The lovely lodge where we stayed, with it's floor-to-ceiling windows overlooking a mountain lake, was filled with conversation and laughter.

But it was a somber weekend too. We're all in our 50s and 60s. We've all been through difficult life experiences. Many of us have aging parents that we help care for. Some of us have been through divorce or difficult break-ups. We've lost siblings and friends. None of us are untouched by death or heartbreak. We're a group of friends who confide in each other, who listen to each other's stories, and we talk as we eat or walk or sit by the fire.

None of us have advice for each other. We know there is nothing we can say. But just telling stories and knowing that your friends are listening: that has value. By Sunday, we were all feeling lighter, happier, and more at peace. Sharing burdens has that effect.

And the weather was in our favor. The sun shone down as if it were July rather than October. Few of us thought to bring bathing suits, but that didn't matter. Skinny dipping is our tradition, after all. As we left the lodge, bringing towels with us, I grabbed my camera.

"This will be the perfect setting for a naked photo shoot," I said. 
Dancing Woman shrugged, "I'm in."

There were a few motorboats on the lake, but I assured Dancing Woman that they were far away. She stripped off her clothes and waded into the water. "Splash !" I yelled to her. I stepped in the lake too, up to my knees, in order to keep the sun behind me.

Dancing Woman splashed, tentatively at first, and then in bigger and bigger splashes of water. Pretty soon, she was playing in the lake the way a child would, getting everything around her wet. Any self-consciousness disappeared as she danced along, spraying lake drops into the sky, so that it fell onto her hair, her bare arms, her whole body.

She kept going long after I was done taking my photo.

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

The two-for-one naked photo shoot

When LovesBooks told me that she was coming to the Friendly Green Conference, I knew that she’d get naked for me. Heck, she practically risked her life to pose for me two years ago – and she stripped naked IN THE SNOW to pose for me last year. I wondered what she’d be willing to do this year. I soon found out: she brought her husband and got him to pose too.

That’s one of the things I love about the naked photo project — the way it gathers momentum. Once someone poses, they usually start coercing their friends to get naked for me as well. When Great Blue Heron finally posed for me, after years of pressure from his friends, he said to me, “I’m relieved to be in the club.”

All the cool kids pose naked for my blog. Everyone knows that.

I had a fun time getting to know Trail Mix, the husband of LovesBooks, and we all agreed to meet on the last morning of the conference for an early morning photo shoot. I figured everyone would be relaxed because we’d have all of our obligations out of the way. What I forgot to factor in was how sleep-deprived we’d all be.

As the three of us stumbled sleepily out of the dorm, I looked around at the campus buildings, filled with windows and people, and wondered where the heck we could find a secluded spot. I was so tired that my head felt like someone had filled it with jello which was congealing nicely.

Luckily, Trail Mix had given the enterprise some thought. “Remember that building where we had the opening reception? There were reflecting pools. And even naked statues.” I knew the spot he meant. It wasn’t terribly private. In fact, it was right in the middle of the campus.

But he led us confidently over to the spot, stripped off his clothes, and handed them to his wife. It helped, actually, having an assistant. It’s nice to have someone to hold the clothes.

He walked barefoot over to the sculptures and began posing, while I yelled ideas. “Put your arms in the air! Now, maybe a sitting down shot? Like you’re doing yoga?”

“Ouch,” Trail Mix said as he sat down obligingly. “The stones are a little rough on my butt.”

“Think of it as a massage,” LovesBooks said helpfully. I snapped the photo pretty quickly, just as the sun was coming up over the building.

“You might as well get a shot of me,” LovesBooks volunteered, before I even asked. Seriously, I love this couple. She sat down near the water, her legs stretched out, and I took the shot.

We didn’t even have time to look at the photos on my computer. We squinted at the photos in the back of my camera and exchanged hugs all around before they went back to pack up for their journey home.

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

Out on a limb

This spring, I got the distinct impression that my friend Maine Writer had changed careers. On facebook, I saw photos of her hanging upside down, supported only by a long stretch of silky fabric, and photos of her swinging from a trapeze. There was a fabulous photo of her body stretched out in mid-air, poised and confident, supported only by an aerial hoop.

Clearly, she’d run off and joined the circus.

I could imagine it all: raucous music playing under the big top, the smell of popcorn and elephant manure, the sawdust floor, the bright silks – and Maine Writer swinging from a trapeze to thunderous applause. I figured she would quickly make friends with the lion tamer, the clowns, and the ringmaster. She’s got that personality. Within days of joining a circus, she’d be star of the show, and what’s more, she’d be friends with EVERYONE.

But when Maine Writer arrived at Friendly Green Conference last week, she seemed just the same. Still a writer. Oh, she had the shiny brightness of a trapeze artist, for sure, but she was talking about a book she just wrote and brainstorming ideas for the next book. When I asked about the photos, she said, “I went to circus camp!” Ah. A once-per-week camp? That made more sense.

Her circus camp training, we both felt, would come in very handy for a naked photo shoot. We just needed to find a tree with smooth branches so she could dangle naked. We planned to get up at dawn — really, we intended to venture out early, before a single soul was out — but of course, the Friendly Green Conference means late nights with friends we hardly ever see, and so it happened that the campus was populated with colleagues walking to sessions by the time we began strolling about in search of a place for a naked photo.

Our friend Ocean Breeze came with us, and rain began to sprinkle down as we walked along. Conditions weren't ideal -- but then again, they so rarely are.

We’d been talking, that morning, about relationships, and the ways in which we are vulnerable. At Maine Writer’s reading the night before, she’d read a piece in which the emotion was so raw that half the room was crying by the time she was done.

“There are people coming this way,” Ocean Breeze warned in her quiet way, as we stopped by some trees and Maine Writer stripped off her clothes. We hadn’t gone very far. We were right in the middle of campus, in fact. And it was daylight.

“I’ll just climb into this tree,” said Maine Writer. It’s true that being naked in public can make most of us feel vulnerable. But perhaps it’s different for writers. I mean, once you’ve taken the smashed pieces of your heart, held them up to the overhead lights of a bookstore, and shown them to a roomful of friends and strangers and people who love you – perhaps being naked physically is easy in comparison.



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

The Man with the Great Blue Heron Tattoo

You’d think it would be awkward, asking a man to come back to my room to strip off his clothes, but really it wasn’t. I’ve known the Man with the Great Blue Heron Tattoo for many years, but we only see each other at conferences, so we were both talking like crazy as we walked across the campus where the Friendly Green Conference was held. He shared with me the story of a dramatic health crisis (now safely in the past), and we were so busy catching up on the goings-on of our spouses and grown children that, before you knew it, we were in my dorm room.

The room was private, but otherwise not an ideal place for a photo shoot: lots of wooden furniture crammed into a small space, with a single window and a bed across the space in front of the window. My friend wanted his tattoo in the photo, but not his face (I assure all who pose for me that the photos will be anonymous), and unfortunately, he’s not a contortionist.

“I think you should pose with a computer,” I said. “You’re so quick to reply to emails, no matter what time of day.” I grabbed my laptop and handed it to him. He leaned over the computer, touched a couple of keys. And then he was so startled that, naked or not, he turned to look at me. “YOUR COMPUTER ISN’T PASSWORD-PROTECTED?”

I held up my camera and looked at my friend standing stark naked in my room. “THAT is what you find startling about this situation?”

“But really, you ought to have a password,” he said, patiently, gently, the way he likely talks to his daughters. He pulled up a photo of a great blue heron so that the picture on the screen would echo his tattoo. Yes, we are THAT clever. Then I told him that my smart phone wasn’t password protected either. It seemed ironic, somehow, for the naked man in my room to tell me that I’m too trusting. He’s probably right.

In the end, we managed to get the great blue heron into the shot. And we did find time later in the conference to sit and talk about how much we love that beautiful, graceful, ageless bird. He shared with me his decision to get a tattoo, to mark a moment in his life or perhaps, I should say, the graceful passage from one moment to the next.

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

In sickness and in health

The travel gods conspired against my conference roommate, Maine Writer. First she was told that her flight was going to be late. Then it was cancelled. So she got on a train, which -- based on the texts she kept sending me -- was only minimally faster than a dog sled. She arrived in the middle of the night, missing the dinner she had planned, where friends toasted her health in her absence.

She also missed the lovely, sunny weather that we all enjoyed the first day of the conference. During the three hours of sleep she got that night, a cold front rolled in. As she walked over to the conference center to give her talk, bitter winds slapped cold air against her throat, her forehead, and her bare legs. The toast to her health was clearly defective. By the time her panel ended, she was flushed and running a fever. Her usual throng of admirers, rushing up to talk to her about her upcoming book, didn’t seem to notice.

“Are you meeting us for dinner?” I texted her from the back of the room.
“Can you get me some drugs?” she texted back.

That was her conference: hours of traveling and a miserable cold, with very little time to spend with her friends. Yet, despite these dreadful conditions, Maine Writer remained loyal to the naked photo project. She knows the tradition: anyone who rooms for me has to pose. I was willing, at this point, to let her off the hook, but she insisted.

"Of course I still want to pose," she told me. We went together to the hotel spa on the third floor, which had a sauna. “This heat feels so good,” she said. "I've been shivering all day."

Then she stretched out on a bench, naked. “This is all I have the energy for.”

We’d been talking earlier about self-care, and I’d listed the things I do for myself: long walks outdoors, potluck meals with friends, making time to read and write and meditate. Sometimes self-care means just taking the time to be still and listen to our bodies. Especially when we’re away from home and miserably sick.



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

Felt like spring

Last week, the area schools had their annual February break. So on Friday, I drove to a little town on the other side of the lake to visit the 16-year-old who used to live across the street from me. We kept in touch while he moved from foster home to foster home, and then four years ago, he was adopted by a wonderful family.

Biker Boy has grown taller than me and his voice is deeper, but he’s still the same sweet kid who used to come over and play with train tracks on my living room floor. He and I went out for breakfast to a diner that served delicious blueberry pancakes, and he told me everything happening in his life. He likes his high school, he broke up with his girlfriend, and he still loves to fish. He joined the fire department where both his adoptive father and his adoptive grandfather volunteer: he’s the youngest firefighter.

After breakfast, we took a detour to stop at the fire department, so he could show me their trucks. It’s a one-story building, which means it has no fire pole, but it seemed like a nice facility. I took a photo of him out in front. “If there were kids in a burning house, I would do anything to get them out,” Biker Boy told me. “I’m like that.”

“I know,” I said to him. “I’ve always liked that about you.”

We had a lovely morning. We took a walk along the lake, where the wind had piled up mounds of soft ice in various shades of white and blue. We stopped to take a hike at a park where the melted snow was rushing and crashing over a cliff. And of course, we ate the same lunch we always do: slices of pizza with root beer. It’s a tradition

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Sunlight in mid-February

When I got home from work today, I realized that something was different: the sun was shining. It was still light out. And everywhere, snow was melting. Wet snow slid from tree branches. The banks along the driveway were shrinking. When I walked to the creek, I saw water instead of ice.