tales of a skinny dipper

i love to skinny dip. you might even say i am a skinny dip enthusiast.

 i guess the root of the issue is this: i feel like clothes are a burden. they are heavy and itchy and you have to tug and pull all the time. the absolute worst is when you wake up in the morning and the waistband of your jammies has made a 180 degree turn around your stomach and the ankle of your pant legs are bunched up to your thighs. yuck. so i never wear pants to sleep. one time, i slept completely naked and while i loved the feeling, i couldn't help but imagine someone coming in my room (parents/kidnapper/what have you) and seeing me sleep naked.

one time i was sitting in my bed, under my covers, reading a book, when my friend kindra came in to join me. we sat companionably reading for a while when her leg accidently brushed mine.

"rachael. please tell me you're wearing pants."

"uh. no."

and that was the end of that. she went to read in her own room. i guess we all have our own naked comfort meter.

so back to skinny dipping.

i remember the first time i ever went. i was 14, staying in a beach house in north carolina and my cousin and i decided we had to go. my mom, having been a free-spirited skinny dipper in her youth, agreed to take us. we waited till everyone was getting ready for bed and we snuck out. once we were sure no one was around, lexi and i stripped down and ran in the water. after i stepped on something that shimmied underneath my feet, i wigged out and we streaked down the beach instead, screaming the whole time. we didn't stop until someone set off fireworks right in front of us, so we wigged out again, and turned around, giggling and running naked back to my mom as 14 year olds do.

at first it was weird....and then it was awesome. seriously. i am pretty sure skinny dipping is the best feeling in the entire world. for someone who hates clothes, it is the most liberating, freeing feeling in the world. and the thrill of maybe getting caught? just makes it more exciting.

there have been many SD excursions since then. a few in lake powell (just make sure the fish don't nip at you), a swimming pool here and there, and an almost-excursion while camping in the tetons...until it was discovered and thwarted by someone's dad. it's bound to happen sometime.

and i got my skinny dip on big time this summer in israel. we spent two weeks in a kibbutz on the sea of galilee and our directors were very clear that we weren't supposed to swim without a lifeguard around.

so, naturally, on the first night, my friends and i set the meeting spot and time (the hammocks at 2 AM) and went to bed. at 2, we snuck past our professors hut and then past our directors hut and into the water we boogied. it felt like a scene out of the parent trap.

it became almost a nightly tradition. i have never in my life felt so alive. and you know what? i am 99% certain that our directors and professors knew what we were up to. there was just that twinkle in their eyes and that unspoken understanding that we wouldn't get caught and they wouldn't ask about it. but i know they knew.

and then there was the time after galilee when we went swimming in the dead sea in broad daylight with our professors in a lake that makes you float. skinny dip challenge accepted. but i'll keep that story to myself. it was pretty sweet. am i proud of it? heck yeah i am.

my point in telling these stories is this: the world is stressful and crazy and it's easy to get caught on the routine conveyor belt of life. every once in a while, you need to jump off the conveyor belt and do something a little crazy to keep life fun and fresh. for me, one of those things is just taking my clothes off and going for a swim.