I had a naked summer and I was 36 years old. I didn't know how badly my heart needed it until it found me skinny dipping in the kiddie pool at midnight with my husband, carefully exposing my soul to a new friend, ripping back the layers that had hardened over my heart with each turn of the page in a book, crying wild tears into the ocean surf, laughing uncontrollably around a campfire and dancing in the white cresting waves on a moonlit beach.
I watched her run naked all summer. Naked in the kiddie pool, naked on the beach, naked in the ocean. Her soft white baby skin bronzed by the sun and I just couldn't make her keep her clothes on. I watched her dance and shake and run across the lawn in fits of giggles and I couldn't help but smile to myself. It was her innocence, her joyfulness, lightheartedness, her nakedness that spoke to my overdressed soul and I knew I too needed to find a way to be naked again.
Others watched with disapproval, sometimes asserting their belief that she should be clothed, I should be clothed. I struggled to put them on again but they were heavy, weighty and I knew I couldn't, shouldn't even.
So I will learn from my naked summer and pray Autumn doesn't put a chill in my spirit and make me forget my husband's cool scratchy kiss on a hot summer night, the healing found around a cup of coffee with a friend who sees you, the truth nestled among lines of printed word, the sting of the ocean on my cheeks, the joy of laughter mixed with woody smoke and the sparkle on the water at night.
And she shall run naked.