Dawn Walks

Walking for heart and joint health, I take off every morning at about 7:00 a.m. In this part of Texas at this time of year, it is the time when the sun is just coming up.

A new day. A new dawn. As with the beginning of your life, it should be entered into completely naked, completely open, and immersed in the great wide world. Of course, if I try to walk in our park nude, I will get arrested almost immediately. There is an elementary school on the other side of the stand of trees on the right. Besides, I am old and vulnerable to the cold and too much direct sunlight. So, I took the picture with my phone and later made it into a cartoon. Poppy and Dewey are my imaginary walking partners. They can be naked the whole way because I alone can see them.

I am a dedicated nudist. I love to be naked in nature, though my days of being nude are much more limited than I would like. Health problems and other peoples’ ideas of nudism prevent me.

Every new dawn is a celebration. It is an unexpected gift. And each one I collect now, at this age, is precious and priceless. It is a gift I have somehow earned. As the turtle told the panda, “That is why it is called the Present.”