As a retired person and a naturist I enjoy being nude in the outdoors whether it be hiking and swimming in the mountains or desert or just enjoying a morning or afternoon praying, meditating or puttering around the back yard gardening, maintaining bird feeders, cleaning the pool doing a crossword puzzle and such. Always counting my many blessings for being able to live the rest of my life this way if I want. I usually don't have to be anywhere and my stress level is somewhere in the range of" huh? and well...don't worry about it." Save trips to the store, home depot or a nursery I can often spend days like this and even a week or two even a month before rousing from my reverie to do something important like go for a nude hike or visit a nude beach. After all I'm a little over or an hour from De Anza Springs and about 30 minutes from Blacks Beach.
After an active day of gardening etc I generally shower in the evening, don a robe, slip into a martini and sit to watch an hour or two of TV before heading for bed leaving the robe on the door I slide into bed for a peaceful nude sleep. When ever I wake up I head out to the back still nude and start my day only dressing later if I have to go out.
It was on just such an early fall morning a year or so ago as I was having coffee and watching the hummingbirds fighting over the feeder that the thought occurred to me that I hadn't been to the beach all summer and my last nude hike was in June. How did this happen!! I mused and then dithered awhile as to whether I should get dressed for a drive to the beach or stretch out on the lounger and finish Sunday's NYT crossword. I finally resolved to take the puzzle to the beach and work on it there. I put on an old faded and threadbare pair of Russell gym shorts a polo shirt and sanuks grabbed my Tilley and a towel and headed out the door.
Half hour later I was in La Jolla at the head of the goat trail atop the cliffs overlooking Blacks Beach. The hot, dry fall Santa Ana winds were in pitched battle defending the cliffs from the invading off shore sea breeze. I stood in the melee of warring breezes and looked down on the near deserted beach a couple hundred feet below. A few nude soles wandering along the surf line and a towel or two laid out here and there along the sand. The sun glared brightly in the white sea foam of the waves as they curled onto the shore. A fairly big wave day and I could see surfers out further and south of the trail. A mile and a half of cliff lined clothes free paradise set off from the urban sprawl a half mile east.
I have been up and down this trail many many times and was trying to remember my last visit. A year or so before I had been plagued with a strange illness. Severe joint pain along with the constant rigors of fever and chills that went on for a month before I got a proper diagnosis and medicine. The final diagnosis which was just about the least severe of all the possible what ifs being considered by specialists was taken with great relief and thankfulness for small favors yet did come with a few caveats. The cure all elixir that was prescribed kept me out of the sun and off martinis for the duration of medical treatment which lasted most of a year.
I'd now been declared well and off the regime for a few months by then. I quickly realized it had probably been well over a year or maybe two since I'd been to the beach. The long drought from sunshine ended one summer day a few months after stopping the medicine. I remember being out in the yard, looking down at my clothes and wondering what am I dressed for? Seconds later I was nude enjoying the sun and now here I was a couple months later my sun tan restored walking down to the beach.
The hike down the goat trail was uneventful except encountering an older surfer carrying his board up the trail. As he passed me I noticed he was nude with no net just his board for cover. Generally the beach alone is clothing optional and not the trails yet on this day our intrepid surfer was making it so. He was barefoot and only had his board and I wondered if he had driven from his home that way or had a pair of shorts in his car. While continuing down the trail and as I was considering this odd encounter a vivid memory came rushing to mind of my own nude hike down to the beach almost thirty years prior using a boogie board for cover.
I had driven to the beach nude and didn't want to dress for the hike down. One of those spur of the moment dares. It was around noon on a spring day there were a few people heading down the trail from the lot. I didn't think I'd have the nerve yet when there was a brief break in trail activity I was out of the car and walking nude down the trail with only the boogie board for cover before I actually realized what I was doing and it was quite the experience as I passed clothed people coming up from the beach about a quarter way down. I was in very good shape at the time and could have easily run back up to the car yet I pressed on surviving the first encounter from two couples and we exchanged smiles as we passed. There was such a nervous rush to it all and I began thinking of the risk I was taking and that maybe I should dress.
The goat trail is the northern access to the beach from the cliffs above. It is steep and about half way down there is a 30-40' wide rounded lookout before the trail narrowly descends again to the beach. A line of people were coming up the trail and holding the board horizontally at my waist, I waited for them to pass before continuing on. The trail narrowed significantly for the final leg to the beach and it seemed deserted so I pressed on. Of course as soon as I started down several folks started up the trail from the beach all of them dressed. It was too late to do anything so I pressed on passing and greeting them on the narrow trail assuming most had just dressed for the hike up and had been nude anyway. I was still a bit of an unknown risk and I was glad to hit the sand.
Now thirty years later here I was kicking off my sliders at the bottom of the trail, stuffing my clothes in my pack and seeking a place to lay out my towel. I walked toward the surf line sucking in the salty sea air feeling the sun and breeze and had an overall sense of being re-born. I exhaled deeply sloughing off any remnants of the ills of the past and felt completely renewed.
The glare of sun on the water and crashing waves was blinding yet as I neared the water I began to recognize a rather awkward looking shape just off shore in the zone of white foam between waves and sand. At first I thought it to be a large dog yet as I watched the figure now appeared human and was just stumbling in the surf zone walking blissfully along while waves knocked them over every few seconds sending arms and legs flying in different directions as the waves carried the figure closer to shore.
This went on for a few minutes yet as the figure emerged from the ocean, the last waves spitting this person on the shore. Still blinded quite a bit by the ocean's glare I began to notice glints of blond hair and bronze skin as the person approached in a very unusual way lifting and stretching their legs in different directions as they walked and waving their arms about. Almost in fact as if they had just been born from the sea and into a human body with which they were not yet familiar.
As the person approached within forty or fifty yards and began to take shape I realized it was a woman and as she neared it became apparent that she was a tall stunning young lady with wet golden locks strung around bronze shoulders. Many thoughts were going through my head at once like was it legs or fins I first noticed flailing around in the surf. Was this a mermaid turned human approaching or Aphrodite herself born once again from the sea? The closer she got the more beautiful she appeared and with a small necklace of tiny white shells her only attire I began to wonder if I might be seeing things and maybe the fever and chills were returning. The most curious thought was why in the world is this goddess walking toward me?
She continued her awkward walk with an occasional break to normal stride as she approached within a few feet greeting me with a bright smile and hello before bending down to pick up her clothes which were in a pile a couple feet from me. I hadn't really noticed them until then. My reverie now broken I realized she was someone who had gone for a dip and was returning to her things which happened to be lying next to me.
I returned her greeting and we began to chat as she gathered her clothes. As the nude boundaries change from time to time I was curious what the exact nude area limits were so I asked if she knew. Samantha (Sam) as I later learned dropped everything on the sand, stood straight up and with the exaggerated arm movements of Dorothy's scare crow she began pointing and explaining in a voice very similar to the muppets Janice that "OK.. You can be NAKED from the southern trail down there to the earth globe up there. (The earth globe is an old metal mooring that broke loose from some place and ended up near the northern end of the beach years ago. Sometime in the last 20 or so years someone painted a globe on it.) As we chatted I realized Sam was a true hippie having been raised in Northern California where according to her everyone walks around naked and as someone well into their seventh decade it was simply awesome to meet such an innocent and guileless wonderful person living in the big city. Not a part of her body was untouched by the sun. Her shoulder length hair had probably rarely if ever been styled nor the glistening small blond hairs on her shins had never been shaved. Yes she was a beautiful and wonderful contrast to the current smooth trend at the beach and a true throw back to a simpler time. As an old trying hard to be organic gardener I'm sure this young woman could have shared many tips from her hippie family in the north. She said she really didn't want to get naked today yet the heat and the water made it irresistible so she had shed her clothes and ran into the ocean a bit before I arrived. As we began to part ways she again left her clothes as they lay and Venus returned to the sea for one more dip and who could blame her. I was off to find my own spot and do the same. As I walked up the beach Sam was back in the surf zone doing that awkward walk and getting knocked ass over tea kettle by the oncoming waves and enjoying every bit it would seem.
I felt truly renewed and thankful not just by the sea and air yet also knowing there are still young souls who know how to enjoy a nude beach.
Cheers and namaste everyone.
