Finding My Badass Self

by Sherry Stanfa-Stanley

  Next, we passed by a bronzed Adonis. Fortyish. Dark, wavy hair. Holy Mother of God! Was he standing at half-mast? I yanked my mother’s arm once again, before either of them had a chance to speak.

  We continued on a bit and found a sheltered place, next to a stack of rental lounge chairs, for my mother to settle in. I headed down the beach. As I plodded across the sand, I glanced around. The winds were high and the sky was slightly ominous, so the beach wasn’t nearly as crowded as advertised. Although it was publicized as a family-oriented nude beach, I didn’t spot a single child. I saw very few women, either.

  Ninety-five percent of the sunbathers were men. Some lay spread-eagle on the sand, their hands behind their heads. Several roamed the beach, in what I could only assume they believed to be their untethered glory.

  It was a blustery day. All around me, dozens of winky-dinks waved in the wind. I didn’t wave back.

  I lowered my head, hell-bent on finding the perfect spot to drop down—and to drop my drawers. About three miles away from anyone else, I figured, would be just about right.

  I finally gave in to the futility of privacy. Privacy—at a public, nude beach—was probably an oxymoron. And considering how stupid I was feeling for ever believing I could go through with this experience, “moron” was the operative word.

  Spreading out a towel, I plopped down. Still wearing my swimsuit and cover-up, I opened a book and pretended to read while contemplating my next move and questioning my sanity. I realized I could only end this by ripping off the Band-Aid quickly, and that meant peeling off my swimsuit. And so I did.

  I promptly covered myself with a second towel. It was windy! It was chilly! I needed that towel! But a gust immediately whipped the towel into the air. It landed neatly folded over my face, leaving the rest of my body fully exposed.

  I sprang up to spread the rogue towel back over me, but then the towel beneath me also went awry in the wind. I silently swore and attempted repeatedly to unfurl it, with no success.

  Finally, I heard a voice say, “Here, let me help you with that.”

  Swiveling my head, I saw a young man kneeling directly behind me. “I noticed you struggling,” he said. “Here, let’s just put one of your sandals on each edge of the towel to anchor it down.”

  I forced a smile, looking only at his two brown eyes while praying he’d make proper eye contact with me, too. Especially in this close encounter.

  “Oh, uh-huh. Good idea,” I murmured. “Thank you.”

  Once the bottom towel was secured, he returned to his spot several feet behind me. I lay back down and held my second towel on top by extending both arms firmly over it. I stared at the sky. Finally, I pulled the top towel off. I squeezed my eyes shut. I adopted the logic of a two year old: If I can’t see anybody, then nobody can see me.

  I sucked in a deep breath, both to steady my nerves and to flatten my stomach.

  Nude sunbathing, I tried to tell myself, was much like sleeping in the buff. There were no clothing constraints or elastic pinching, and the breeze provided a soft, cooling sensation much like a bedroom ceiling fan. Totally conducive to relaxation.

  Right.

  I heard the voices of people passing by and I flinched any time I heard a pause in their conversation. Wait. What were they doing? What were they looking at? A couple helicopters flew over me. I prayed they weren’t taking aerial photos. Or areola photos. Amidst my terror, I managed a snicker.

  Fifteen minutes later, my mother texted me from her secluded post a few hundred yards away. “I think it’s starting to rain. Want to go?” No, it wasn’t raining—probably just sea spray from the wind. But, hell yes, I wanted to go. I hesitated. “Fifteen more minutes,” I wrote back. I figured forty-five minutes on the beach and I could call it a day.

  “OK, whenever you’re ready,” she texted. “So much to tell you. I’ve been taking lots of notes.” As I suspected, having my mom along raised the entertainment bar a notch or two.

  I closed my eyes again and endured another fifteen minutes of emotional duress. Time passed more slowly than it ever had in the history of the universe.

  Finally, I yanked my swimsuit back on and quickly gathered my things. I also gathered my courage and looked behind me. The young man who’d assisted me with my towel sat a few yards back, fully clothed and reading a textbook. A pile of other books and spiral notebooks lay next to him. He glanced up and smiled. I nodded back.

  For a college student like him, I figured any beach was a nice alternative to the campus library. I pictured him penning a term paper about awkward middle-aged women who visited nude beaches, probably an assignment for his abnormal psychology class.

  My mother shot me a look of relief when I returned. She rolled her eyes and gestured to her right, just around the stack of lounge chairs. It seemed our friend, Adonis, showed up there just after I left.

  “Do you mind if I sit right back here behind you,” he’d asked her, “to get away from the wind?”

  She’d replied, “No, you’re fine.” She told me, later, she had smiled to herself, thinking, oh yes, you are fine, indeed!

  But he’d gone on to spend the rest of our stay parading around her. She’d squirmed a bit in discomfort and then grew annoyed. She had no issue with viewing his endowment; she just wasn’t keen on how intent he was on her admiring it.

  As we prepared to leave, Adonis immediately stood up, walked over to us, and preened some more. I think we would have found him more attractive if he’d left a tiny bit to our imaginations. Although Adonis would be pleased to know “tiny” wasn’t a word either of us would ever associate with our memory of him.

  While we made our escape, my worldly mother reminded me she’d been to another nude beach, years ago, in St. Martin. She said the Europeans seemed much more nonchalant. They appeared comfortable, and far less demonstrative, with nudity. The Americans down here in southern Florida? Not so much.

  Some people might go to nude beaches to flaunt their stuff. Others, like me, visit out of one-time curiosity. Maybe a few simply prefer the freedom and the full body tans. I’d take the tan lines, thank you very much.

  Our day trip to Haulover Beach proved to be quite the sideshow. With a great amount of trepidation and a long-lingering sand wedgie, I took part in it, from top to bottom. I gave myself some credit for that.

  In the end, the person most mortified was Son #1, who caught wind of the experience upon my return home.

  “Wait, you and Grandma went to a nude beach?” His eyes widened in horror before he tightly closed them, attempting to shut out the image. “I could have gone my whole life,” he muttered, “without knowing that.”

  I rolled my eyes. The boy knew nothing about humiliation. Just wait until he was fifty-two and had lived to tell a few more tales. By then, I’d have a few more stories myself. I doubted, however, that they would include any additional nude beach experiences.

  And, next time I whined about trying on bathing suits, I’d remind myself anything might be better than nothing at all.

  Chapter 27:

  DINING IN THE DARK

  Nothing delighted me much more than eating a nice meal out. So why was I apprehensive about going to dinner one evening while vacationing in southern Florida? Maybe because I was still nauseated by that afternoon’s naked outing at the beach. Or maybe because this particular restaurant served you a mystery meal and advised you to not use any sharp implements—since you’d be dining in total darkness.

  “Dark dining” was a new trend, suggested to me by my friend, Toni. Only a few places in the United States offered it, but an online search led me to Market 17 in Fort Lauderdale. I reasoned my mother and I could stop there on our way back from the nude beach near Miami. How challenging could dark dining be after the afternoon escapade I just endured? I only hoped I hadn’t lost my appetite.

  I wasn’t sure how to envision this experience, especially since I wouldn’t be able to see a thing. My research, however, noted that without sight, our other senses ar
e often amplified: particularly the abilities to smell, feel, and taste.

  Our server seated the two of us, alone, in a private back room. I wondered if she’d overheard our replay of the nude beach excursion while we’d waited in the fully lighted restaurant bar. I assured her I wasn’t a serial nudist. She laughed and eyed me nervously, disconcerted rather than comforted.

  She went on to explain that the rest of the restaurant featured normal dining, and while they used to group all “dark diners” together in one separate room, all the voices in the dark room tended to confuse everyone. It seemed a wise change in protocol, especially since my mother and I were the easily confused sort.

  We wouldn’t be befuddled by a menu, even if we had been able to see one, since our server said she would be choosing our four-course meal for us. We were allowed some input: Our waitress inquired about any major food aversions or allergies. No food allergies, we told her, but we were both quick to mention our mutual loathing of lima beans. (Do I need to explain this again?) I added liver and onions to my no-fly list, and I noted I didn’t eat veal either, for humane reasons. (Vegetarians: No need to relay how inhumanely other food-providing creatures are treated, too. I know. But, after my recent vegan week, I had not yet given up pork and I was still taking a vegetarian lifestyle one baby cow step at a time.)

  Our server reassured us she’d be serving none of these repugnant items. My queasiness eased. As long as I wasn’t served filet of cat, I promised not to complain.

  The waitress left to place the order for our first course, and the lights went out. I leaned across to my mother, nearly butting heads in the pitch black.

  “This is weird, sitting here in the dark,” I said.

  “What?”

  “I said, ‘It’s weird sitting here in the dark.’”

  “You’re going to need to speak slower and louder. I’m not wearing my hearing aids.”

  I rolled my eyes in the darkness, knowing she couldn’t see my response. “You’re not wearing your hearing aids?” I yelled. “Why?”

  “I didn’t want to get sand in them at the nude beach.”

  I rolled my eyes again. Terrific. Apparently, I’d be dining that evening with Helen Keller.

  “You should probably put them in,” I shouted. It was more a command than a suggestion. She poked around, finally located her purse on the floor, and spent five more minutes digging through it. Miraculously, she managed to find her hearing aid case in the dark.

  “Got it. That wasn’t so hard,” she said. “Now, I just need to find the little pack of batteries.”

  Sigh. I refrained from my usual sarcastic retort. Although sarcasm would have mattered little since she couldn’t hear a word I said.

  Inserting the batteries was a more intricate process, one for which my mother insisted she needed light. She reminded me that she and her friends always carried a flashlight. Just as she fished one from her purse and switched it on, our server appeared with our first course.

  “Uh-uh,” she scolded us. “No cheating.”

  “Please,” I implored. “For my sanity.”

  The waitress, who was wearing night-vision goggles, waited patiently as my mom adjusted her hearing aids and shut off her flashlight. Then, the server announced she was placing our plates directly in front of us. She left the room again, and I reached my hands out in the dark to locate my food.

  Finding my plate was only part of the battle. The next challenge was getting the food into my mouth.

  We started off the meal the proper way, by attempting to spear our food with a fork. Fortuitously, neither of us stabbed ourselves. But we brought our forks up to our lips countless times only to discover we’d either turned the fork sideways or else our food dropped off entirely.

  Fellow dieters: Dark dining is a damn good weight-loss plan. You can cut your calorie intake in half simply by missing half the food on your plate.

  Since forks were little help, we took to eating with our hands. Our server reassured us this was typical for dark dining. It proved far messier, yet no one was there to witness it or complain.

  With her night-vision goggles, the waitress could see just enough to place our plates on the table. The most difficult task, she told us, was filling our water and wine glasses. Still, she never spilled a drop. At least as far as we knew. My mother, not known for her daintiness or grace even in an ordinary dining situation, feared she wasn’t faring as well—with her food or her red wine.

  “When we get home,” she said, “I’ll probably have to throw away this white jacket I’m wearing.”

  When the food did make it to our mouths, the next puzzle was deciphering what we were eating. Who knew how much we rely on the sense of sight while dining, especially when we haven’t even chosen the meal? Without being able to see our food, figuring out what we were eating proved a tremendous test.

  During our four courses, our speculations were only somewhat on target. Some of the individual ingredients were easy to guess. Throughout the evening, I noted curry, onions, and whole almonds with little difficulty.

  By the texture and shape of the first course, I guessed at first it was overcooked baby carrots, although far less sweet than I’d expect. After a few more bites, I concluded it was some sort of dumpling. Our waitress later confirmed it was potato and chive gnocchi. Gnocchi/noodles. Poh-tay-toes/poh-tah-toes. I gave myself half a point for accuracy.

  The second dish consisted of round slices of a mysterious substance I thought might be eggplant, yet the rind had an almost meaty taste. My mom and I were fully confounded. We learned it was “wahoo,” a kind of fish, cooked rare. I’d have failed that challenge even in bright light, given multiple-choice options, or after phoning a friend for help.

  The third course: easy-peasy. By the smell, taste, and texture, my mother and I both agreed it was beef. Our server corrected us. No, it was actually venison. And so, I added eating deer, something I’d never had any inclination to try, to my list of new experiences. My deep apologies, Bambi.

  The last course, dessert, resulted in a scoop of ice cream upon a flourless chocolate cake. My mom and I eagerly devoured it, pleased that we’d closely called this one—we’d both guessed brownies.

  Throughout our dark dining experience, I noticed I did concentrate much more on the aromas, textures, and flavors of each dish. And, certainly, the sense of touch proved to be important. The old adage “Don’t play with your food” was justifiably ignored all night.

  As far as the meal itself, my mother and I agreed it was good, but not fabulous. Given the gourmet courses we were served, a true connoisseur might have appreciated the food more than we did. Maybe we were lowbrow diners. Or perhaps we needed to see it to believe in it.

  On the drive back to our hotel, my mom said dark dining had been interesting. Out of that day’s two experiences, however, she thought she enjoyed the nude beach more.

  Huh.

  Clearly, you’re never too old to try something new. Or to learn something new and slightly unsettling about your mother.

  With some things, maybe it’s best to remain in the dark.

  WINTER

  Chapter 28:

  I’M JUST A SINGER (IN A ROCK AND ROLL BAND)

  Following my two professional voice lessons, I disregarded my instructor’s dubious endorsement of “Well, you’re loud,” and made plans to jam on stage with a band anyway. Given the iffiness of my ability, it was shaky territory. Still, I figured I might pull it off as long as I followed a few hard-and-fast rules:

  • Rehearsing with the band

  • Singing backup only (singing lead would wait until my musical career exploded)

  • Looking hot, with a great haircut and an ultra-cool black leather outfit

  • Being one or two sheets to the wind (three sheets to the wind might backfire)

  It was a decent plan. But, as the saying goes, if you ever want to make God laugh, just tell him you have a plan.

  I received an invitation to perform with the Rolling Bo
nes, a terrific Rolling Stones cover band in New York City. My band contact, Charlie, appeared excited about my appearing with the group, although he hadn’t yet heard me sing. Minor details.

  I was awaiting confirmation about the show date when I attended a huge party hosted by my friend, Joan U. The occasion was the annual rivalry football contest between The Ohio State University and The University of Michigan. I was lukewarm about football, but I always enjoyed a good party.

  More than a hundred guests filled a large barn to watch the grudge match on a projected screen. Joan and her husband, Bob, arranged for a post-game live performance by The Danger Brothers, a popular Midwest band.

  As parties go, it was top-notch: a fun crowd, fabulous food, and terrific music. The booze was flowing freely, too, but I had decided to stick to nursing a single Bloody Mary all day. I was having such a great time that I even gathered the nerve to join my sister, Lori, and some of her friends on the dance floor. I had never been much of a dancer, at least not while sober, so I gave myself some credit for courage.

  During one of the band’s breaks, I spied Son #2 talking to Joan. They hadn’t met before, so I was pleased to see him being such a gracious guest. From a few feet away, I caught a few words of their conversation: “My mom… The 52/52 Project… singing with the band.”

  NOOOO!!!!

  I rushed over. “No, no, not today!” I shouted. “Yes, singing on stage is on my list, but I can’t do it today,” I explained to Joan. “I need to work with a band on planning a song. We need to rehearse a couple times. Plus, I’m wearing this old sweatshirt and jeans tonight, and I had to cancel my already overdue haircut last week. I can’t go on stage looking like this. I need to be prepared for the whole thing. Besides, I’m already working this out with another band. So, today is definitely not the right time.”

  Joan smiled and nodded. “Got it. I understand.”