There is nothing worse than incongruity, thought J.
An adult Psychology student who had returned
to college to complete her degree, J. had learned that the term “Cognitive
Dissonance” meant saying one thing while doing another.
That had been me before coming out. Hiding everything about who I was,
masking my confusion, keeping my head down and my secrets safely concealed.
Because people, meaning my parents, could be close-minded and cruel. Today,
the world is different. More accepting. Or is the world the same, and I have
changed?
Back then, she had shied away from her
religious parents to avoid dropping what would seem to them like a nuclear
bomb. When she was in college and could bear the burden of love lived in
silence no longer, she had dropped it. She met with them formally, and as if
she were delivering a eulogy, her voice quiet and her brow furrowed as if she
could prepare them by her seriousness and solemnity. But it was not them who
got hit, but her. She was soundly rebuked, disowned, and erased from their
lives. She hoped in time that things between them would get better, that space
would erase the words they could not mean; she hoped that time might heal their
differences. It did not seem possible, but as the years wore on her parents had
become more entrenched in their born-again reasons to keep their distance until
they drifted apart all together. She had been cut from the family as one cuts
out a hated ex from a picture. Consequently, she had determined to love
herself-or was trying.
She knew when she was eighteen. She fell for
another girl at church, a Spanish girl with white porcelain skin, extra kind
brown eyes, and long fingers that were made to play the piano. At 17, Linda was
already a concert pianist who spent her Summers playing in orchestras that
toured the world. She was a prodigy who had classically trained since she was a
child. Her father was a balding wealthy attorney who J. only saw in pictures,
and her thick-brogued mother from Spain had molded her into a polite,
disciplined, and well-bred young lady, except she had a weakness for the
underprivileged, which is why she took to J.
J.
admired her talent and dedication and would turn her sheet music just to be
closer and to watch her play. J. would have liked to study piano herself,
except her single mother struggled to give her the basics, much less, private
lessons. The girls would sleep in the same bed after their late-night piano and
giggle sessions when J. was too tired to drive home. As soon as they hunkered
down, Linda would grab J., pulling her close, announcing, “Cucharitas!
Cucharitas!” that meant, “It’s spooning time.” With passionate Spanish blood
and customs, Linda was demonstrative; all her family was affectionate, she
explained to J. They were best friends, so Linda lavished J. with praise for
the slightest thing. Her words were laden with honey and acceptance, luxurious
words that her severe single mother would never say.
J. would pretend to fall asleep, breathing
with Linda for hours, never admitting to herself what she knew, that this was
love, for what else could this intensity be? When you want to breathe with a
person? Crawl up in their skin to be closer because laying side by side is not
enough. When listening to their soft breath, the essence of them, is far
sweeter than sleep? In the morning, when the anguished night of longing was
over, J. built the brick wall around her heart again so she might never lose
Linda as a friend. She hoped to preserve things just as they were, never to
cross that line for fear of ruining what they had, what was unsung, secret, and
as fragile as a long piano note that dies out slowly. In time, J. had faith
that Linda would discover her undying love; but her shrewd mother saw through
it. She found them one morning in bed spooning, sleeping like two fallen angels
in a clandestine embrace.
“It
was the innocence of friends, mummy,” Linda explained in the hallway as J. anxiously
listened from the bedroom. “Girls our age, we feel affection for each other as
best-friends do, nothing else! Do you want me to be affectionate with a man
instead?”
“Better
a man,” warned her watchful mother as she wagged a carefully manicured finger
with blood-red fingernail polish in her face. “No more cucharitas!”
But the girls did not listen; the nights were too sweet,
pure, and soulful to give up. Until a man came into Linda’s life, a stranger,
from where J. never knew, though she suspected that her mother had orchestrated
it. He lived in the forests of Oregon in a log cabin he had cut and built, a
real lumberjack with red and white plaid shirts and a ready, wide smile. Athletic,
with muscles bulging, he swept Linda away like a flood that comes unannounced,
overpowering everything. The girl’s bond was tossed aside faster than a
schoolgirl’s crush. She did not stop long enough to say goodbye.
Linda went to the forest with him, taking
everything but her piano. Quickly she married without even knowing him. Silently
and bitterly J. watched her go, not understanding why. Years later she heard
from a friend that Linda had divorced him because he hit her, and she had
returned to her piano and watchful mother in the city. The humiliation would
not let J. speak to Linda again. This was not the last time that a man took
what was hers or what should have been hers. Now in her thirties, J. had dated
and won the hearts of many women and did not consider men a threat. They were
her brothers, bosses, and guys at work to shoot the shit with. She did not envy
them, and she was not afraid of them. Now she was one of them.
It was not always so easy to blend in. After
Linda, she sacrificed her true self as if she were a Christ on the cross, a
saint who nailed her passion to the wall to please God and her parents. She
dated mild-mannered men and refused sex in a confused effort to rid herself of
the “disease,” and it was exactly that, a dis-ease with herself as a straight
person. J. felt she could not possibly have what she wanted because her
parents, female friends, and church would be uncomfortable and worse yet,
rejecting.
It was killing her. Every minute, every hour,
every month. The years passed, the clock always ticking. She dummied up like a
mute, like a mousy, noiseless thing as she watched the hands
of time revolve without her. When would she have the audacity to face the
truth: she was different, maybe, really different? She was unlike anyone in her
family, and there was no one to talk to about it. Growing up in a small town,
she did not know a single gay person. It felt like it would always be this way,
her against the world. A hopeless, lonely feeling, a resentful, simmering
feeling she had come to embrace and wear as a shield, her lot in life. When you
are told that being different is wrong, or worse, that it is a mortal sin, you
go into hiding, which is why she put off coming out for decades.
Until that fateful day when the air in the
cave became so rancid that she hated the smell of herself, her lies, and her
pretending. She resented herself, for benign smiles to insulting comments about
her short hair and masculine swagger, and just outside she he could see the
bright sun beckoning. Disgusted with the denials and buttoned-up shame, she
stepped out, legs trembling, into the light. Having been in the dark cave for
so long, saying the words to her parents for the first time felt like speaking
a foreign language. She shuttered, looked down and declared, “I am gay.” Once
the cat was out of the bag, her life was never the same. You cannot walk back
an admission like that-it is life-altering. At that moment, J.’s life split in
half: before, and after. It is a wonder she came out at all; rejection is
painful, stigmatizing, and in some cases, deadly. Despite her best role-playing
she was driven to embrace her uniqueness, a truth so magnificent it hurt.
But J. felt more than different. She felt
truly, remarkably strange, because after announcing her sexual orientation to
the world, another revelation surfaced that she had pushed down, ignored, and
denied. It struck her like lightning when she heard a friend say the words: you
are transgender.
“There
are freaks, and then there are the super freaks,” J. told her friends. “I am of
the latter persuasion.”
That is how she thought of herself: a freak of
nature. While lunching together, a compassionate lesbian friend from one of her
Psychology classes could see J.’s anguish over her gender dysphoria and
reminded her of the story Beauty and the Beast.
With words as soft as a rose petal she said, “The beast that
roars is your shadow self. The part of you that you have not wanted to see. It
has been howling to get your attention.”
“So,
I’m a beast,” J. said, sourly.
“No.
The shadow is your beauty-it is the truth about you. As soon as you face it
you’ll be transformed.”
“Funny,
but my parents don’t see it that way.”
“People
may not agree, but only because they are dealing with their beasts.”
“You’ve
been reading too much Jung,” teased J.
J. came to understand that people only
persecute others when they have unheard beasts lurking. Still, it was tempting
to listen to the nonsense talk. Religious programs were running the people she
had been taught to trust, people she had once respected. These programs had
flooded and poisoned her mind since childhood and by familiarity seemed decent
and right, but they did not fit anymore. She struggled beneath a skin that did
not fit anymore, and like the clothes she had outgrown, she could not put those
old ideas back on. It left her feeling exposed, with little to cling to for
protection, like walking naked.
***
“Let’s go to a nudist beach!” suggested J.’s
live-in girlfriend Tracey, her eyes shining. Tracey was years younger than J. Vivacious,
friendly, and outgoing, she was just what the reserved J. needed to bring her
out of her shell.
“A
nudist beach? Where did you get that idea?” This was the same girl who woke up
one morning and on a lark announced that they were going to take a motorcycle
trip from Oregon to San Francisco to see China Town because they had never seen
it. And they did.
“I have been before,” she said coyly, batting her lashes, “Just
never with you! I want to go with you!”
The thought of getting naked in front of total
strangers was not on J.’s bucket list, but she did not want to seem like the
elder fuddy-duddy, so she reluctantly agreed.
“I
will give it a go. What have I got to lose, except my self-respect!” Tracey
wrapped her
arms tightly around J’s neck and kissed
her.
“That’s the spirit!”
***
Before they hit the beach, in the parking lot,
when they could still escape the coming humiliation, J. complained that she was
too fat to be naked in public. She had driven them on her motorcycle and was
reluctantly stuffing her riding leathers into the saddle bags.
“You’re not too fat. You’re too white,” Tracey quipped. “Honey,
try to think of this a
an adventure!”
“Is
that what we are calling it? This is going to be painful,” J. moaned.
“Only if you forget your sunscreen. Now stop
bitching, and let’s go.” Tracey walked
around the motorcycle and grabbed her hand.
“You promised.”
“Anything for you,” J. capitulated. The river
was concealed by tall, sprawling trees that hid the beach from the road. It was
a scorching summer day-too hot for white girls to be buck naked in, but here
they were. With every step, J.’s heart began to pound with anticipation. If her
churchgoing mother could only see her now! She could not tell if she felt
excited or doomed. As the beachfront came into view, there was no mistaking they
had found it. There were seniors with saggy baggy elephant knees and
hard-bodied teens. Couples leisurely strolled the beach holding hands, and an
exuberant volleyball game was in progress. Suddenly, J. felt awkward in her
clothes. They found a spot in the warm sand and parked it on their brightly
colored beach towels.
After
a few minutes of taking it all in, Tracey said, “Well, shall we?”
“Shall we what?” said J. grinning. “I cannot believe we are doing this!”
“Isn’t it fun?” Tracey squealed.
J. undressed with her back to the volleyball
game where most people were, wrapping a big towel around herself. Tracey
laughed because she had already taken her clothes off as J. stood over her
awkwardly.
“Jeez!
I am too fat and too white for this!”
“Honey,
I’ve seen it all before,” Tracey assured her. “So, when’s the big
reveal?”
As
J.’s fate hovered between heaven and hell, she was taking stock of her
imperfections. They were glaring; as glaring as her Wintry white legs. But in a
burst of courage, she whipped off her towel and landed quickly on the sand with
a thud.
“Was that so bad?”
“Yes!”
Strangers passed them with a cordial hello and
neither of them knew where to look. If they looked away while someone was
talking, it was rude, but when they tried looking at the beachgoers, their
eyeballs kept wandering down to their…birthday suits. As hard as she tried,
J.’s eyes embarrassed her by darting to the forbidden zones for a sneak
peek.
“What is wrong with my eyes?!” J. said,
exasperated. But as the minutes wore on, she started loosening up, mostly
because she was noticing other people's flaws. With no clothes to hide behind,
the nudist beach was a sea of imperfection.
“Hi. I’m Larry, the beach manager.”
A string bean of a guy who looked like Sam
Elliott with a cowboy’s white mustache stopped to introduce himself, holding
out his long hand. Being unsure where to look, J. concentrated ridiculously
hard on his eyes.
“First
time here?”
“How did you know?” asked J.
“Oh,
I’ve been doing this long enough to tell who is a regular and who is not…plus
you have that first-time look of terror on your face.”
They
all laughed. Larry produced a marijuana cigarette from nowhere. “You guys
smoke?” he asked. “It’s just pot. It will loosen you up, might even make the
day more enjoyable.”
Larry
lit the hand-rolled joint and Tracey looked at J. who gladly accepted. “Thank
you,” said J. reaching to take a puff. “Why didn’t we think of this?”
“It
will wear off before you have to drive home,” said responsible Larry through a
haze
of smoke.
"Where are you guys from?" asked Larry.
"We're locals," replied Tracey.
"We get people from all over the world. Even had people
from Alaska recently, looked like they had never seen the sun. Maybe they live
in Igloos," he said, and they chuckled. "I am always curious where
people hear about the beach."
"This is Tracey's doing," said J. "I didn't even know Portland
had a nude beach."
"I
take all the blame," Tracey responded. "I've been here before."
"Ah,
so you're the one that corrupted her," he replied with a wide smile.
"Did
anyone ever tell you that you look like Sam Elliott?" asked Tracey.
"I
get that all the time; it is the mustache. And my physique." Larry made a
muscle with his gangly arm. "I'm just kidding. If I looked like him, I
wouldn't be wasting my time at a nude beach."
"Is this a pickup spot?" asked J.
"Do
ducks quack?" said Larry. "Nobody has any clothes on. It is easy to
notice when somebody likes you." They all laughed.
"She
says I don't know how to flirt," admitted J. "Maybe I should have
been coming here."
"There's
more flirting going on here than...I was going to say like a cat in a room full
of rocking chairs, but I mixed my metaphor." He took a long drag on the
joint and held it in. "These things are great-except they give you brain
damage." He let out a stream of smoke and started to laugh, then choked
and coughed.
"A
little brain damage never hurt anybody," Tracey replied.
"Except I don't have many brain cells left," he added.
"How
long have you been coming here?" asked J.
"They
don't make you beach manager for nothing! I found this little oasis after the ’Nam
War. It healed me. I could come here and forget everything. People at a nudist
beach don't care if you smoke too much pot, or are too skinny, or too fat. There
is no such thing as an in-group; it levels the playing field. Here we are all
the same. Well, there’s a few differences," and he smiled his adorable
cowboy smile.
"That’s
really beautiful," replied Tracey as if she were already floating. J.
turned to her and thought, my girlfriend is a lightweight.
"There's
something spiritual about this experience. It changes you," replied Larry,
and J. thought that the pot must have a grip on Larry now, too. He offered the
last puff to J. who gratefully accepted because she did not want to be the only
one left out of the euphoria.
An attractive woman across the sand called
Larry's name, waving, and bouncing enthusiastically. "I guess that's my
cue. Speaking of flirting, it's time for me to help a damsel in distress. Now
you see why I do it," he whispered to J. as he winked playfully.
"Damn, you got a good
thing going here. Thanks, man, for the pot-I owe you one." J. held out her
fist and Larry returned it for a fist bump.
"You kids let me know
if you need anything, alright? You have a real nice afternoon," and the
welcome wagon sauntered away; his tiny, wrinkly butt headed for greener
pastures.
"Wow, what a cool
guy," replied Tracey.
"He's been coming here
since the Korean war," said J. "That's like...a hundred years!"
The pot must have hit because J. could not add to save her life, even on her fingers.
"If you keep coming
for that long you might get as comfortable with it as Larry."
"That's never ganna
happen," replied J. "But I admit, this wasn't such a bad idea after
all."
"Are you saying that I was right? Was I right?" Tracey
made a tickling motion at J.’s plump tummy.
"Don't go that far,
woman," J. said playfully, and she leaned over and planted a kiss on Tracey’s
willing lips.
The afternoon wore on as the women giggled
raucously, stuck to their beach towels like someone had super-glued their
butts. They watched the nude volleyball game with amusement but declined offers
to play. Neither of them got up from the seated position to try the water
because that would mean they would have to stand upright. However, they both
took a much-needed nap. Larry’s magic cigarette had made the day fly, and as
the afternoon sun started to retreat, they were feeling naked again. Their
innocence was fading fast, and by five o’clock, the sun was going down and the
spell was broken.
Not wanting to seem like
squares getting dressed on the beach, they covered up with towels and scurried
fast to the trees, their clothes wadded up in front of their sunbaked privates
like Adam and Eve when God went looking for them in the garden. They hid in the
bushes, quickly pulling cool clothes over stingy skin. Before leaving J. sought
out Larry to say goodbye. He was still with the buxom blond and had a
shit-eating grin on his face.
"We just wanted to say
thanks again," said J., holding out her hand.
"A pleasure meeting
you.” Larry pumped J’s hand. “Come back anytime now that you know somebody. I
will always be here," replied Larry with a twinkle in his eye, and he
turned his attention back to the woman who was completely enchanted by him.
***
Once home, they sat on the couch enjoying the
breeze of the fan, skin glowing nuclear red, slathering on aloe-vera gel and
discussing their adventure.
“I think everyone should go to a nude beach, at least once,
because it isn’t easy!” exclaimed J.
Tracey
congratulated her. “It took a lot of guts to get that far out of your comfort
zone.”
“Being there showed me that once the barriers are removed, we
are all imperfect. All of us.”
“Maybe that’s why people do it,” replied Tracey. “Maybe that’s the
point.”
“Huh?”
“Whether it’s at the nude beach, or during sex, or when you’re
coming out, it’s stepping out of perfectionistic programming so you can be
yourself.”
“Being
yourself…” echoed J. “Yes, that is what it let me do. Be completely myself in
front of other people. I am not going to say I liked it or that I would go
back. But there was an element about it that was…liberating.”
“You liked walking around naked,” Tracey
teased.
“I
think part of me did! To say: “This is me-like it or not” to the world… it’s…a
good feeling.”
“Then
I’m going to have to get you naked more often,” she cooed, and she kissed the
sweet spot on J’s temple where she did all her thinking.
“Honestly,
it felt good not to have to hide anything today. That was the first time the
world has seen all of me.”
“Maybe
that’s the message from today. Be yourself, J., just be yourself.”
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