Skinny Dipping

I went skinny dipping yesterday! Well in a sense I did. There was nothing "skinny" about the dipping that I did. I guess you could call it "chubby dipping", but then the connotation of that would imply something of an entirely different nature. Do you ever feel overwhelmed with the need to do something crazy? To just let yourself go? I do. As Goose and Maverick (Top Gun) would say, "I feel the need, the need for speed!" Perhaps it has something to do with the walk I took down memory lane this past week. Something about the contrast of who I was vs who I am, barbed me. Am I getting old and settled before my time? Rebellion has become a long lost feeling that I hadn't even realized I missed it. So I let go. And I went skinny dipping in broad daylight.

It was 33 degrees Celsius yesterday, muggy as all hell and I am not a heat person. I had just spent three hours at the barn with the farrier and had that heavy legged and light headed feeling that precursors heat stroke. I had planned on riding but gave up on that idea in the first half hour so I simply did my chores and headed home. I walked in the door to discover that my house had become a sauna. Opening every door and window and turning on every fan failed to make a dent in such stagnant heat. My big Cattle dog, Hawk (Hawkeydog) was sprawled on the kitchen floor panting. He gave me "the look" like I had better get him the hell out of the house or else. I didn't even bother to change my cloths, I just grabbed a bottle of water, my dog and a magazine and jumped in the truck. We went for a ride with the windows down and the music turned up loud. With my long dark hair whipping madly around my face, I played with the curves of a windy road and pushed the speed limit. I felt ridiculously wild and reckless. I was headed for the river.

My home town lies at the foot of an ocean sound and is surrounded in snow topped granite mountains. An abundance of creeks and streams lace the valley, each a tributary to a large river that flows in to the salty waters of the Pacific. To me, any flowing body of water with high mountain walls, feels like home. The river is, and has always been, a piece of my soul. In troubled times, when I seek to find peace within myself, the sound of rushing water centres me.

For the past few years, I stopped going to the river. I don't hike alone anymore and no longer walk my neighborhood at night. Some would argue, and I would have to agree, that I finally came to my senses and developed a respect and concern for my personal safety. I use to spend a lot of time alone in the woods, on foot or horseback, which was a going concern for my friends and family. I understood the risks but felt that living was more important that dying. I also had two dogs that were protection trained and provided all the security I needed to feel safe, at least against threats of the human variety. Looking back, I realize that I stopped going into the bush soon after I lost them. A few close calls had put the fear of God into me so that a feeling of vulnerability slowly overwhelmed the enjoyment and peace of mind I use to draw from my time alone in the woods. There was never a definitive moment where I decided to end my little excursions or "walk abouts", as Mick Dundee would say. Actually, I am guilty of letting things go unexamined in more than one area of my life. There are a few pairs of jeans in my closet that have not fit me in years, yet I haven't thrown them away and I cant remember ever admitting at a specific time that they had become to small. I simply stopped wearing them. Socrates said, "The unexamined life is not worth living." Hmm....

So.... Yesterday I took a long walk in the woods, alone. Hawky and I found the river a quarter of it usual size, its rocky bottom lay barren and exposed. A little stream of water weaved its way back and forth, from bank to bank, rippling over the rocks and setting alight a million sparkles in the late afternoon sun. I followed the river bed up a valley of tall Cedar trees and deep into the woods. I couldn't place what exactly it was that I was looking for but something compelled me to continue onward. With ever passing step, I found myself more alone and more connected to vast forest around me. At a narrow and high banked cut of the river I found a large boulder sitting in a deep pool of water. As I stopped to admire this beautiful and idyllic spot, I realized that I had found what it was that I had been looking for. Peace.

The water was so clear that I could see every stone and pebble under its surface. I sat down on a large hot stone and let my legs dangle in the cool current. The bed of river rocks radiated heat and the air hung heavily around me. The water looked so crisp, cool and inviting. I slipped off my light cotton leggings and stepped in to the pool. As I kneeled on the sandy bottom, the cold water touched my waist, my breath came short, and ripple of goose flesh ran up my arms. All my inhibitions were laid aside as I was seduced by the welcome relief of cool water on hot bare flesh. I pulled off my remaining clothes, one by one, and lay myself length wise into the current. With the pull of the water on my hair and my body floating weightlessly in the sun, I felt like a nymph or wild fairy, something inhuman and feral. I inhaled my surroundings, the brimstone sent of wet rocks, the hum of insects in the wood and the perpetual rustle of a soft wind flowing through the Cedars. After a time, I became cold and crawled out to lay myself on a hot, flat boulder. The late summer sun warmed and dried my body as I daydreamed. I walked back to the truck in a stupor, leaving the river behind me.

I drove home slowly, with the windows down and the wind in my hair, at peace.


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****Pictured at top is a photo of myself at seventeen hiking in the backcountry. The lower picture is of Hawky at the river I went to yesterday.****