I chose a different way to deal with the inexorable ravages of middle age this weekend: I got naked with a large group of strangers.

This is something I used to do, years ago, without much thought. It's also something I forgot how to do, without noticing that I was forgetting—I simply ran out of time to sit in the sun and tan, or to sit in the hot springs, or even to send an afternoon cornrowing my best friend's hair on her sunny, secluded back porch. Other things came in and took up the space.

And while I wasn't naked, I was changing, adding a bit here and there, shifting a little flesh, losing some elasticity; I began to notice marks from the elastic I thought I'd taken off hours ago. Nursing took its righteous toll. So did the years of going barefoot. Things hardened, things softened, things just plain slid.

And while I wasn't naked, nobody else was, either. Oh sure, a lover or two or six in the intervening years, someone's flesh that felt so kin to mine that there was no judging it. Group nakedness just dropped out of my life like co-workers when you leave a job—"Oh, we'll keep in touch, I'll call you—"

So this weekend I went with a friend up to the hot springs. The place was clothing-optional, which is a different thing from nakedness-optional. Nakedness wasn't really optional, unless you wanted to stick out like a sore—ummm—thumb, I suppose. Bits of clothing were visible here and there, most looking decidedly odd; a bathing suit bottom on one woman, a hat shielding someone's face from the sun, and one portly man nude except for his sandals and a sweatshirt tied around his waist. Clothing was notable.

Something else was notable: no one there looked sharp. Or stylish. Or well-pressed, or slobby. There was a man trying hard to look dapper, but it really wasn't working. Without the veneer, people looked like what they were: people. Just people. People in a true rainbow continuum of types, from the youngest of bow-arch back and belly to the gray-on-leather tan of many outdoor summers, from lithe elastic prime to dewlap-bellied ponderous. And everything that lies, jiggles, and ripples in between.

I didn't see any stockbrokers, or real estate agents, or teachers. I did see some mothers and fathers, identified by their present progeny, but beyond that there was no identifying. No briefcases or wristwatches, the SUV's and sports cars left a mile back down a winding dirt road. We didn't have lives in common, but only a few hours of hot water and sun, and open air, and the company of butterflies to smile over.

It was the great scene of equalization: the great unwashed getting washed, together. It was get-over-yourself time. Pretense was left in the locker room, or in my case in a beach bag next to my towel. I didn't stare at anyone, but I saw—people filled up my vision in all their bareskinned humanity. I was nobody special, neither freakish nor stunning enough to garner looks. I knew I fell out somewhere on the continuum, and for that day it wasn't so important to figure out exactly where. Nobody sneered at my elastic-puckers or my cellulite, but nobody ignored them, either. They didn't have anything to overlook or forgive me for. And neither, by the end of the day, did I.

I think perhaps I might make this an annual pilgrimage. The day where modesty gives over to sensation. The day where I am nothing more, and nothing less, than one human being.

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Kathleen McCall is a freelance writer living in Northern California. Her poetry, essays and stories have been published in Eclectica Magazine, Buzzwords Magazine, Tourist2000, and The Story Garden.

This piece was first published in INK POT #3 - 2004, a literary journal.

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