Catch a Falling Star

Playing a piano recital completely naked is a nightmare some kids have when their piano teacher schedules their first recital. But it is something that is only a nightmare, not something a piano teacher would ever do in reality. Not require the piano student to perform nude, I mean. They will definitely schedule the recital and cause the nightmare.

The thing is, however, that the picture above is metaphorical, not literal. A performer on piano, or guitar, or doing stand-up comedy routines, or even teaching from the front of the classroom makes you feel exactly like that. You can’t do it by keeping even one square inch of yourself hidden away, concealed under clothing, lies, or misdirection. The contents of your inner heart has to be there on display.

I remember being naked in front of a classroom of mostly hostile and mostly illiterate eighth graders on the first day of classes in the Fall of 1981. I wasn’t literally naked. But they knew I didn’t speak or understand Spanish the way 85% of them did. They knew I was nervous and feeling awkward. They knew I didn’t know most of the truly terrible things they did to the poor teacher-lady who had tried to teach them English in that same classroom the year before. There were firecrackers under the desk, thumb tacks on the teachers’ chair, classroom fights, insults in Spanish and English directly to her face, classroom posters destroyed… they drove her out of the classroom screaming to the airport in San Antonio and out of teaching and the State of Texas probably for good. I had no armor, no experience, and only a few teacher tricks in my bag of… well, you know, tricks they had all seen already many times. I might as well have been literally naked.

I remember the advice I got in my college speech class about giving yourself confidence by imagining your audience was naked. But 25 thirteen-to-seventeen-year-olds, some with mustaches, some of the boys had mustaches too? Picturing them naked worked against me. They were scarier that way.

I never seriously entertained ideas of becoming a nudist back in my teaching days. I had to consider the morals clause in my endless string of one-year contracts. I had to consider my own post-traumatic fear of being naked after what happened to me at ten. But my encounters with nudists and nudist literature did get me wondering… did make me actually curious.

Like most Americans, I never thought of nudism as something for me, rather, a thing that could be tolerated about unusual people who lived in their heads too much and were often too much of an exhibitionist. But I did create nudist characters for some of my fantasy-comedy novels which I seriously began self-publishing after retiring as a teacher. Specifically, the Cobble Sisters and their family, based on twin girl students who claimed to be nudists in my classroom, though they may have been telling fictional stories themselves.

And then real nudists and naturists began finding my books and liking them. I became a part of the online Twitter-nudist community.

And while talking to a family psychotherapist, he suggested to me that I should deal with some of my problems by choosing one thing I was basically afraid to do, but might provide a thrill or other positive feelings. We talked about bungee jumping and sky diving, but those were out because of my health problems. And then he suggested I might profit from actually trying nudism.

One terrifying thing. A nudist website wanted someone to write a blog post for them about first-time visits to a nudist park or other nude venue. I applied for the job. They published my application piece and then asked me to follow through. I visited Bluebonnet Nudist Park on a Friday in July of 2017.

It was, in fact, one of the scariest things I have ever done on purpose. But once I was actually naked among other naked people, I really felt the power of my accomplishment. I overcame a childhood fear. I accomplished one scary thing. And it felt great. I would eventually do it again after the pandemic.

So, I am one of those unusual and somewhat crazy people now. My wife and children are mortified. I am driving away blog readers who think I must be nuts. And I feel good about it.

I am a burning candle,

Proof against the night.

The flame upon my wick,

Is good, but not real bright.

I’ve flickered in the darkness

For now, well, several years

Guiding children to the outhouse,

And allaying all their fears.

And the melting wax keeps running

From the wick now dripping slow,

And I keep on lighting darkness

Using every trick I know.

But no candle burns forever,

And my light is almost spent.

My light is just a flicker now,

And my wisdom, all now lent.

I confess that I have never been even remotely a lifelong nudist. I have been around them since the 1980s and have always had the secret urge to be one. But I was reared in a household dedicated to the wearing of clothes. My parents, my grandparents on both sides, and the community I grew up in looked upon those people who chose to live a nude life as hippies and generally crazy people.

The nudists I met, including two girlfriends who were willing to embrace the nudist lifestyle, were happy people. They didn’t care much about what other people thought about them. They enjoyed being naked, even in my presence, and the two girlfriends were both greatly amused by my embarrassment.

But what people thought about nudists, naturists, hippies, and people who were too happy was the main reason I didn’t become one in the 1980s. I was a school teacher. And my conduct and morals mattered to parents, especially white parents who were members of the Southern Baptist Church or the Southern Methodist Church. The Baptists officially disliked happiness unless you were wealthy. And Methodists are descended from a Puritan sect who frown at every instance of other people being happy in this life and not saving all smiles for everlasting harp-playing sessions in paradise. Teachers were meant to be dour, humorless, and good at discipline in their eyes. Never naked.

But I honestly did learn a little about why nudists are happier than the rest of us from my girlfriend Ysandra and the nudists she stayed with on weekends in the Austin clothing-optional apartment complex where her sister lived.

Ysandra was the first person I was able to tell about being sexually assaulted as a child. She and her friends helped me see that nudism was good therapy for lingering feelings of self-loathing. It didn’t matter to them what anybody looked like naked. What you looked like was not what it was all about. Very few nudists looked like Rock Hudson or Marilyn Monroe. Lots of them looked like Fatty Arbuckle and Olive Oyl. A few looked more like soft sculptures made out of old pillows with toothpaste holding them together. All of them were confident enough in their own skin to laugh about what they looked like naked. And changing your body self-image is what digs you out of the hole of self-hatred that the trauma put you in.

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And from the nudists I learned that sleeping in the nude left you more refreshed and energetic in the mornings than if you spent the night sweating under blankets wrapped in wool pajamas. Even in winter.

This, of course, is something my father always knew, but never taught me.

And I spent most of my alone time when I was single, naked in my apartment. From about seven at night until the alarm goes off at five in the morning, I got used to not wearing clothes.

Of course I got married. That cured the naked at night thing. Nudity was against her religion. But I adjusted.

And what it all comes down to is that nudists are happier than we are because sunshine fills your absorbant skinsuit with Vitamin D. Playing naked out doors, singing songs, talking to naked people, telling stories with humor about being naked embedded in them, it all fills your soul with good feelings that come from surrounding yourself with the goodness of life that Adam and Eve once had in the Garden of Eden before the fall.

So, now that I am retired from being a teacher, and my wife has finally accepted that I am a crazy old coot who may forget to wear clothes when her Kingdom Hall friends are around if she doesn’t cut me enough slack, I get to be a nudist sometimes. When she’s not around to see it, of course. And I am happier. I am on the other side of hating myself for what once was done to me. And I don’t care if I look like Fatty Arbuckle naked.