in flight to a nude beach
or something like that
There’s a gliderport on a hill. It’s a small building, rather humble for how much enormous anxiety, fear, courage, and not-give-a-fucks it holds. A hub for people to congregate before launching themselves off a cliff, over the giant mass that is the Pacific Ocean.
It’s where I grew up. In San Diego. More specifically, close to Torrey Pines beach. You zig zag up the hill over the state beach and the park trails, take a few turns through some oddly bio-tech heavy neighborhoods, and pull into a dirt parking lot sometimes full, sometimes empty.
When it’s windy, the gliderport can be loud. Windsocks and the edges of the sails of paragliders, colorful and talkative. Flpp, flp, flp, flp, flup. Staccato notes of fast change.
You can sit somewhere, in a chair, on the bluff, in the front seat of your car, and watch with a held breath as people launch themselves from the cliff, catching nothing but a puff of air to allow a gentle sail across the wind, over the sand, over the water, arcing and bending with the dance of a bird, back to the safety of earth. Thrilling. And a lot of work.
Like bugs, so tiny compared to the massive nature of the Pacific, when strapped to their flying apparatuses, sometimes their feet and legs flail, completely unencumbered by the way the ground makes us stick. Free to fly. Free to fall. Free to flail.
That is one option.
Or the other is you can take your feet, on the ground, on the earth, from the gliderport down a path to the left, carve through the bluffs down the hill to the sand. There are many natural steps that are a part of this route, easy for feet to slip out from under on the worn down sandstone. Steep. Down. Steep. Burning. Even though you’re in sneakers and prepared for the athleticism of it all, the nimble lean-bodied golden surfers still pass “on your left, bra” with their bare feet, zinc striped noses, half peeled down wetsuits, and longboard wedged into the space under their armpit. Humiliating. And a lot of work.
At the bottom of it all, whether you go by motorless aircraft or by foot, is Black’s Beach. A two mile stretch of beach connected Torrey Pines and La Jolla that’s fairly untouched because of the fact that you can’t simply pull up to it in your car, you have to venture there. This protection makes it a sacred surf spot, and also makes it a perfect place to home what it’s most known for: its nudity.
Bodies, of all shapes and sizes, of all levels of aging, sprawled about in the sun, on the sand, inviting the rays and the salt and the wind and the paragliders full view of their everything. Vulnerable. Exposed. At rest.
I thought of Black’s Beach today when texting with a new friend about the cycles of love and the pains of loving. She called her wounded heart a broken bird wing, one that she’d soon forget the hurt of, wrap in teflon, and launch back into the skies of love. The gliderport is full of this. Of people launching themselves unabashedly, or shimmying and slipping with great sweat and slurs, off or down the bluff into the mouth of nudity. Of being seen. Of being known.
I am on my own cycle of this, of sorts. Of trying to figure out how quickly I want to be seen in all of me, of how it feels when someone can hold space for that graciously, and how much it still stings when, even in love, sometimes it’s not the right time to be received.
But we won’t ever know if we can be, and if we can sit with our whole naked selves, until we take the dreaded leap from the gliderport; rather humble for how much enormous anxiety, fear, courage, and not-give-a-fucks it holds.
This week I am sitting with what I’ve internalized as learned and normal as I try a new chapter of life. How it serves me and how it doesn’t. How it can lead me to stumble. How it can lead me through loving conversations to hopefully wedge open doors to let the light in, slowly and then all at once.
I awkwardly baby-deer walked through trying to be vulnerable. I stumbled.
I let the sun be on my wholly naked body.
I ran around Detroit, to the Institute of Art, and to Sozai, and to the Riverwalk, and to Sister Pie, and to laughing in my room with a friend til I peed my pants, and to a meeting with a beautiful pheasant, all collared and emerald and shimmering.
A loved one and I were greeted with a surprise blessing from an old woman, toothless and unabashed in “I am so happy” “I love you” and embraced, her body a full expression of a smile.
I fell in and out of a time loop. It felt so good and hurt, too.
I navigated the surprises of having old pets, Snaggle the cat was found to have a big tumor in her ankle bone, she qualified for amputation to prevent the tumor from metastasizing, but then she couldn’t tolerate the anesthesia so the leg stayed and she came home four-legged. It’s likely now palliative-care-mode-time which I guess is the same as all loving care: help you hurt as little as possible. Remind you you’re loved. See what each day brings. She and Snacks the Dog voluntarily chose to snuggle last night which only took 15 months to happen, but it was such a blessing after a tender day.
I stared in wonder at the work of Hokusai and all his intricate prints. The wave. The mountain. The trees. The amas. I thought about how much care it would take to etch such intricate, tiny detail into a block of wood. Painstaking and loving. Love takes work. And perspective. And time.
Sending you so much care as you throw yourself off a cliff to the wind, slip down the precarious stairs, land in the naked vulnerability of love, or sit back and heal as you prepare to go again.