Labor Day tends to mark the end of summer in America. Of the three summer holidays, it is the last of those long weekends away from the cities and daily life. Many people use these summer weekends to "get away," go "camping," or head to whatever beach is available to them for a final topping of their tan or dip in some body of water. After this, after all, it's all downhill.
I too celebrated the end of the summer; the end of my first true summer in many, many years, with a trip to Minneapolis - as I'm known to do. Because I don't explain the true reasoning for my trips, co-workers and family find me daft for spending nearly ten hours in a car for a five hour pool party. I wasn't about to skip the final party of the year due to a lack of acceptable explanation or something as trivial as financing. Man invented credit and privacy for a reason and America thrives on debt and liberty, right?
This trip (two months ago, actually) ended my reign as the newest nudist. My BFF doesn't really count since he just wants to go to the pool parties and could care less about whether he's nude or not. The group in Minneapolis held their annual membership drive at the Twin Cities Pride event and got inundated with requests to join. The last time I was there, a hundred people crammed into a two-bedroom house that just happened to have a heated in-ground pool... surely that wasn't the real draw for the crowd at all. This weekend I was able to spend some time with the newest members of the group and got to know them a little bit. As we all know, a man is far more than the clothes he wears and when he's not wearing any it takes a bit more time to decipher all his quirks of personality. One man wore only a simple silver chain and the other chest hair. Not much information in those fashion choices.
One man preferred to stay very quiet and smile at the antics of my cohorts. He fussed with his thumbs in what appeared to be a nervous venting, and revealed nothing about himself. He did claim to talk more while drinking but refused the giant bottle of Captain I stole from a nearby table. Turns out, he's not all that new to social nudity at all, just the size of the event was new.
The other man admitted to feeling awed by the newness of it all. It is fairly rare to find gay men being both absolutely gay and absolutely male so publicly. Of course, he also admitted to having little practice at either as honest living is a recent addition to his personality. It takes a bit of courage to attend an event with nearly one hundred strangers, much less one with members who already know each other and are used to behaving in a manner not normally seen in the community at large. (This doesn't mean we behave so differently that a casual observer would believe we are aliens - but that's another entry.)
I felt a bit like an old hand at this party. Not only were these men younger than myself, and more handsome by any standard, they were displaying the outward signs of the anxiety I have written about previously. Looking them in the eye I was tempted to simply hug them and prattle on about how it would all be OK. A silly impulse as they are grown men and more fully committed to joining the group than I was. It may also have been the vodka talking... my cups tend to be deep.
So goes the passing as all things. I am no longer the wide-eyed innocent; no longer the voice of the naive; no longer a mere witness to the new. I now am an official member of the group, a shaper of things. I may even wield influence from time to time. So ends my time as a nudbie and begins my next season as mentor. I may even be called upon to dispense wisdom too, though where I'll find any is anyone's guess. So as seasons change and karma continues to unfold I, myself, continue to change and experience the next moment.
I was once surprised by many aspects of social nudism. I was once intensely moved by the openness of these gay men. I was once, but no longer. An era has ended, a new begun, and surely karma will continue to unfold and I'll be surprised and moved by the next aspect of life I've yet to notice - since that is part of the reason many of us participate in these events. The envelope needs to be stretched and a life examined else what is the reason of it all?
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