Wild Body Wild Nature: THIRD EDITION by Tom Wallace - HTML preview

Preface

The stories in this volume are something of an eclectic mix. The common themes that run through them though are bodies, nature, identity and acceptance. Through our bodies we meet the world and through our bodies we meet each other. These two are related but not the same. One thing they have in common is how visceral our responses are — both to the world and to other people. Think for a moment about how some people respond to creatures such as spiders, snakes and mice. Then think how just the appearance of some other people can make us instantly love or hate them! In both cases, the body is very much leading us in how we behave, although of course we are usually quick in covering up our feelings about other people!

We can add here that we often have very strong reactions to our own bodies — both positive and negative — and these reactions can dominate our lives and colour everything we do.

All of the above leads me to wonder how our feelings about our own bodies and the physicality of other people relate to our responses to nature. It would be a very neat solution to say that if we love our own bodies —

our own naked bodies — then we could be more accepting of other people’s bodies and of all the differences between people and also more accepting and loving towards nature. And by the same token, if we feel awkward and embarrassed about our bodies then we’ll be less accepting of others and have less concern for nature. I have no evidence to back this up, I just want it to be true! Many of the stories in this book address these notions, either directly or indirectly.

6

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

I hope readers will be interested in the stories just for those reasons that I have given above.

But there is a wider reason for exploring these ideas and this relates to our current climate emergency. A variety of ‘solutions’ to this emergency are put forward by society —

reducing

consumption,

renewable

energy,

regenerative agriculture, geo-engineering. The reader may favour one or more of these over others, or the reader might just not believe there is a climate emergency. One thing though that I think is more important than any of these solutions (or debates over whether they are needed or not) is our attitude to nature. So all of us can think back to times spent on the beach or in a forest or on a mountain and realise that for whatever reason things are not the same.

Those encounters with nature are changing and often the opportunities to be in nature are diminishing. I think we can set aside all our different opinions by acknowledging this. And then perhaps we can find common ground by seeking to protect and enhance nature wherever we can. So I hope these quirky tales will point the way towards this.

All

the

stories

were

initially

published

individually on the websites www.booksie.com.

and on www.storywrite.com.

This third edition of the book includes two new stories whilst one story is moved to another book.

7

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

8

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

Polar Bare

Wild body meets wild nature in this tale of swimming from the author’s past.

There was a strong breeze, flurries of snow or hail, and dark clouds hanging ominously over the horizon. I was sixteen, visiting my brother, who was lucky enough to live in a very beautiful small town nestled between two magnificent stretches of coastline. To the East of the town stretched a narrow sandy beach with little coves and bays. To the West, some seven miles of broad sands and crashing waves. It was to the West beach that I was heading on that windswept and freezing day.

There was no-one around. I had a purpose in mind. I was going to swim in the sea. I was going to swim in the nude. I got undressed quickly amongst the sand dunes and then ran down the long stretch of beach towards the water. Energy and exhilaration took away any sense of cold. The water was very shallow. I had to splash through it for several minutes before reaching sufficient depth to be able to properly plunge in. But at last my feet left the sand and the freezing water took my weight.

Nothing between my naked skin and wild 9

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

nature. Waves break over my body until I have swum out far enough to be clear of them. My breath came in sharp gasps, both from cold and excitement. I swam back to shore with waves pushing me in towards the sand. Then a long run back up the beach to my clothes.

There is something very special about climbing into your clothes after a swim in cold water. A kind of all-over warm glow in your body. I felt it then as I was fully dressed and walking back towards my brother's house. I had a deep sense of satisfaction. I had had the courage to get naked and the courage to brave the elements.

Mission accomplished.

Many years later I learn that there are groups called the 'Polar Bare Club', whose members take to the water in cold weather, just like my own teenage swim. (Unfortunately, Polar Bare Club has recently become a horrible computer game, so cold water swimming groups have started to use 'Bear' instead of 'Bare'. But I will stay with 'Bare', as it captures what we are about.) These cold dips have the advantage that there is usually no-one around as well as all the excitement of being nude in situations where most people would be firmly wrapped up in clothes. More generally, 'skinny dipping' has become a thing and the term 'wild swimming'

has been invented. I like 'wild swimming' as a phrase, as it links nicely to ideas of wild body, wild mind and wild soul. But of course, to be a proper wild swim, it must be a nude swim!

Many years later I returned to that same beach of my teenage swim. It was very much unchanged. The weather was considerably warmer and there were a few dog-walkers in the far distance. I had a swim, much like my teenage adventure so long ago. This time 10

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

though, I am able to sit on my towel for a while and dry off in the sun. There is another nude around but they keep a respectful distance.

Several beaches I remember as a child have not done so well. They are either no longer there or greatly changed for the worse. Even a modest rise in sea levels has washed sand and small pebbles away, leaving only rocks. When we think about these changes it is often in an abstract sense. But when it is a place you have known and loved as a child — either for swimming or sport or some happy times with family and friends — then it takes on a sense of personal loss. New lonely beaches, or hidden valleys or mysterious forests are unlikely to show up any time soon. Meanwhile, human

'development' continues apace, making the world bland, boring, disenchanted, polluted, sick and ugly. My heart and soul feel this loss like a wound. Do we travel further afield to seek out the beautiful places that still survive? But that just adds to the problem.

Few of us have the power or influence to do much about this loss — we can only do our best in our own small corner of the world. The most important thing for me is to live as simply as possible — a very, very simple life. This, it seems to me, captures the spirit of what my teenage self was seeking all those years ago.

This is the spirit of Polar Bare.

11

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

12

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

The Streak

Youthful antics take on a serious turn in this memoir from the author’s past. The story challenges our thoughts about ourselves as we face an uncertain future.

I was just a teenager when ‘streaking’ became a thing. It seems to have started with American college students. After a party and a few drinks, they would strip off their clothes and run naked around their college campus, or the streets of the town or city where they lived.

I remember that summer my parents and I were taking a holiday in a trailer. My Dad offered me the equivalent of several weeks’ pocket money if I would run in the nude from our trailer to a signpost several hundred yards away and back.

I guess he thought that no-one is likely to be too bothered by a fourteen year-old boy running about in the nude. But I was not so sure! So I declined. On returning to school after the holidays I was surprised to learn of streaking incidents amongst my classmates during the summer. Perhaps I should have taken up my Dad’s offer after all, so I would have had a story to tell!

Whilst shyness had prevented me from any public streaks, I nonetheless took to doing some 13

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

private streaks in woods near my home. I found it enormous fun and later would take to secret nude swims as well, when the opportunity arose. I guess you could say these were not

‘streaks’ in the official sense — where the intent seems to be that you are seen — but at least I’d thrown off a bit of shyness by getting naked.

Perhaps I could be called a closet nudist!

My most treasured streaking memory was in a similar style — that is, the more private kind of streak. It happened some years later at the home of a friend, Cheryl. Cheryl was lucky enough to live in a remote house surrounded by woods. She had invited me and some other friends to a party one particular summer evening. Whilst the weather was warm there were storm clouds brewing on the horizon all day and low rumbles of thunder. Soon after arriving at Cheryl’s house, the storm finally broke and a torrential downpour set in. Cheryl and her friend Samantha were delighted! They took everything off and then both put on some heavy boots. Then they set off from the house out of the gate that led to the woods. This was no quick dash down to the bottom of the garden and back! Cheryl and Samantha must have been gone for some fifteen or twenty minutes.

Who knows where they had got to! But at last their bare rain-soaked bodies appeared in the light cast from the house windows. Their faces were lit up with delight and they were giggling uncontrollably! They were ecstatic! Someone met them at the door with big fluffy towels and they went away to get dressed.

No-one seemed the least bit concerned or shocked by Cheryl and her friend’s nude run through the woods. I guess we all just accepted it as typical of the wild care-free character 14

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

whom we all loved.

Streaking went through a phase of being something that would happen at sporting events, but that has mostly died away. There is however a growing use of nudity for slightly more serious ends, such as the nude bike rides that take place yearly in cities across the world.

These events are often held to draw attention to climate change, and at first take this might seem kind of arbitrary. But think about it. To be nude in traffic may be a bit of a thrill when you are with a group of like-minded people. But if we were alone in this situation then for most of us it would be a nightmare. That ultimate symbol of capitalism and climate destruction —

the private car — is just a noisy, polluting and frightening hunk of metal travelling at speed amongst thousands of other vehicles. We may feel safe inside our cars, but that safety is bought at the price of creating chaos in the surrounding world. So what better way to demonstrate the real state of affairs — the real vulnerability of the human animal — than by being a fragile nude body in amongst all that mechanical carnage.

It was nude bodies that conceived each one of us and a nude female body that gave us birth and nursed us. It is only through the care of all this humble flesh that the human world keeps going. We might not like to think of ourselves as having this kind of vulnerability. We may not wish to think about our own bodies — shrouded so often in clothing — hiding our physical presence in the world, for which we only feel shame. Or perhaps we were once proud of our younger body, but have now been shamed by the attitudes of society. And add to this our emotional vulnerability, the vulnerability of 15

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

children, the elderly, the disabled and the poor.

Even that soul that nestles inside you is a wild naked soul! Perhaps she has not been fed properly for many a year. Perhaps society is just not geared up for coping with wild naked souls!

So, yes, the nude bike ride is more than just a silly prank. It speaks about who we really are.

It asks us to consider why our towns and cities are not built as places where our true naked selves are genuinely nurtured and protected.

Where children and the elderly are kept safe and cared for. Where people feel secure in their own flesh and in the wild nature that surrounds us.

Well, you may be thinking, we’ve come a long way from Cheryl and Samantha and their nude romp through the woods! And perhaps you are not convinced? Perhaps you see no link between these stories of ‘foolish’ youngsters getting naked and the seriousness of our plight as we destroy nature to feed our ever more demanding technologies. It may be that you are a shy person and all this talk of nudity just makes you cringe. And fair enough! I’m not saying we all need to be nudists to understand the message I’m trying to get across here. Of course not!

But it may be that you have a certain scorn or contempt for the idea of human vulnerability? If you are such a person then fear not because if we continue on our present course then you will have won! There will be no more girls to disturb you, running naked through the woods, because there will be no more woods. And that fragile creature that lives inside you — remember her?

She will not trouble you any more. She will be dead.

16

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

17

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

18

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

Beach Dream

A recurring dream leads to speculation about being true to ourselves but finding the skill to play with identity.

Walking along a promenade. A summer day.

There are people lying out in the sun, feet facing the water. It is some familiar town and the beach curves away into the distance with people all along it. After a while I notice there are some naked people in amongst the people taking the sun. No-one seems disturbed by this.

The nudes seem welcoming and friendly and this I take as some sort of a sign. It is time to stop, get undressed and go swimming.

So begins my most frequent recurring dream.

Often it stops around this point. I wake up feeling very content. Sometimes the water is too shallow for proper swimming. Sometimes it gets deep and then shallow again. But if the dream continues further it goes like this: Diving down beneath the water, there are ruined buildings. Somehow it is possible to go inside and walk about. The water is kept out and there is air to breathe. For the most part the rooms of the buildings are empty. But occasionally there are rows and rows of clothing on racks, like in a 19

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

store. The clothing looks to be theatrical or fancy-dress costumes.

If the dream gets this far, I wake up feeling a bit frustrated! There seems to be quite a build-up in the dream, only to find empty rooms and costumes.

I’ve spent many years pondering the meaning of the dream. But then I read that finding an

‘official’ interpretation is maybe not such a useful thing. Perhaps instead we should just live with our dreams and let their stories inform us. The messages of a dream may change over time and bring us new insights.

How does the dream sit with me right now?

Well, to start off, those nude people on the beach suggest some kind of acceptance. We accept ourselves, I think, partly because the people around us are open and honest. With luck, this will be our parents, but it might also be friends or some other supportive people in our lives. We see them unafraid to be themselves and that, in turn, gives us the courage to be who we really are.

Sometimes it’s enough to stop with this, just as the dream often stops at this point. After all, having the courage to be who we really are is a huge step forward for a lot of people. When I first began having the dream this was indeed as much as I could aspire to.

But the rest of the dream suggests to me a more complex message. Most of human interaction is not about the literal truth, it seems to be saying! I don’t mean that we are always lying to each other. What I mean is that we are hooked on stories. And the most addictive of our stories are the stories we tell ourselves about who we are and what our lives are really 20

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

about. So, finding our ‘true’ self — what we have been talking about up to this point —

might actually still be a fiction of sorts. Or we might describe it as our ‘core narrative’ — the story that sums us up best, or the story that is closest to the ‘real truth’, if indeed that even exists.

So here is the tricky move that the second part of the dream is pointing to. Most of us adopt one

or

more

stories

about

ourselves

unconsciously. We don’t realise we are just playing a role and sometimes that role can be very harmful to ourselves and to those around us. But what if we got beyond that point —

through the nudity (being able to be our ‘true’

self) and through the underwater chambers (the wealth of alternative stories open to us). And then finally we can put on a role consciously rather than unconsciously. What then?

This is where I’m at with the dream right now.

You may think — just as I have worried — that this consciously putting on another self is a bit of a lie, a bit of a gimmick. Perhaps it is even dangerous

or

foolhardy.

We

may

be

misunderstood — we may harm others when we really intend to help them. But still the idea sits there as an intriguing possibility.

The idea of putting on a false persona links closely with a way of looking at art. Art can be described as ‘power-under’. What do I mean by this? Well, the artist loves the world — for it’s beauty — but has a problem with the world — in that all forms of beauty are being destroyed by the dominant patriarchy of human culture. How might the artist resolve this? The artist can deliberately adopt a false persona, as an act of play, but with the deadly serious intent of challenging the power structures that are 21

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

currently destroying the planet. This is what I mean by power-under.

You know what? I think I’ll give it a go.

22

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

23

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

24

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

The Encounter

A youthful crush leads to thoughts on gender, identity and our relationship with nature.

There was a big house near to where I grew up.

The house had acres of woodland all around it and also a few ponds. One of the ponds was a plain rectangle, with squared stones around its edges. It seemed that the winters were a bit colder when the house had been built and this pond would freeze over and became a skating rink. In my childhood though it was out of use for skating but still an interesting place to visit as a teenager.

The hippy era had more or less passed by the small town where I lived. But one girl at school was the exception. Natalie had long dark blonde hair, was often bare-footed and seemed always to be clad in flowing skirts and dresses. She was blessed with a permanent tan.

One day I was at the rectangular pool and Natalie came by. Although the water of the pool was quite shallow, she undressed and climbed in. Here my memory fails me, because I remember her being nude but realise this was probably unlikely, even with her status as resident hippy! Nonetheless, the memory of her swimming in the little rectangular pool lingered 25

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

on for many years! And the memory got tangled up, over that time, with a story about another rectangular pool and another girl with long flowing hair.

My brother had been away on a boys camp and one of the days of the camp was set aside for a visit with parents and siblings. To my young self, the location of the camp seemed impossibly remote. When we got there we found an impressive and ancient stone house with walled gardens and an enormous rectangular pond.

The pond was considerably deeper than the one near home. There was a story circulating that long ago a young woman had gone swimming in the pond, became tangled in weeds and drowned. Her ghost still haunted the pond, so the story went, and anyone who dared swim there might be pulled under by the sorrowful young woman. My brother recounted this story with relish, not realising of course that it was a useful story for adults to tell in order to keep young boys away from deep water. But then, such a strategy might easily backfire and have little boys daring each other to go swimming in the haunted pool!

The story of the drowned woman and the memory of Natalie swimming in our local pond became immediately linked up in my head. I thought of both girls lying out on the side of pools to sunbathe or swimming deep down into their ponds, exploring hidden worlds, bathed in the eerie light of sunshine filtered through green-tinted waters.

Natalie moved away from our town during her teenage years, so I never got to see her as a young woman trying to get a job and pay rent!

The image of her as a youthful hippy therefore never faded. Somehow she seemed complete 26

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

within herself and she could do anything. I felt that as a boy I was somehow lacking by comparison. Perhaps this impression came from the trends of the art world, and later, in photography, that have so invaded our culture.

Women are often portrayed just lounging around on beds and sofas, whilst men always seem to be doing something — riding a horse, firing a gun, pointing a telescope — all manly and purposeful things!

Of course, women cannot really get away with anything just by being beautiful, nor are they necessarily complete in themselves — although there is still a little bit of truth in these ideas.

Enough to keep the notions coming back. And also, men

are

not

necessarily

somehow

incomplete, or needing to do something in order to become proper men. But witness all the initiation ceremonies around the world where boys must undergo some ordeal or fulfil some task in order to become men. Even where there is a ceremony from girlhood to womanhood it is usually something done to the girl rather than something the girl must fulfil to become a woman.

I’m sure there are a great many women who are a

long

way

from

feeling

‘complete

in

themselves’, and a great many men who have no thoughts of being somehow incomplete or in need of proving who they are. Nonetheless, these notions of a ‘completeness’ difference between the genders stayed with me throughout my teenage years and well into my twenties.

Perhaps it was a sign of the times, where traditional gender roles were being questioned.

So, if Natalie could be complete in herself, I reasoned, then why couldn’t I feel that way without having to somehow prove my worth?

27

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

And if Natalie could get away with anything (such as swimming in the nude) just because she was beautiful, then why couldn’t anyone enjoy similar freedoms, no matter how they looked?

I began taking secret nude swims in ponds and at deserted beaches whenever the opportunity arose. I loved the feeling of freedom this brought me but the question of completeness still haunted me. Eventually I decided I needed to be nude in front of other people in order to get over that sense of incompleteness and achieve some measure of acceptance. So one summer I set off on a quest to find a safe nude beach.

My first choice was Brighton, the popular seaside town some seventy miles south of London. There’s a small nude beach here. I arrived on a beautiful day, fairly early in the morning, and there weren’t too many folk about.

I undressed and lay down on my front. For a few minutes there was peace and I tried to get used to this first-ever experience of being naked in public. But then two young women came walking by on the promenade above the beach.

They were talking very loudly, so everyone could hear. One was saying that all us nudes were disgusting

and

ugly.

Her

friend

was

remonstrating with her, saying that everyone has a nude body and we should not be ashamed of ourselves, no matter what we looked like.

The first young woman, not convinced, started shouting abuse at a young man further down the beach. I tried to bury myself deeper into my towel! But then, soon after the departure of the young women, a whole group of people, mostly men and fully clothed, came and sat right amongst the nudists. They gazed about them, 28

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

gawping at all of us, as if they were on safari.

There were reflections off mobile phones as they took pictures. I left as quickly as I could and never went back to the nude beach at Brighton.

From Brighton, I arrived in Wales, and a beautiful beach some five miles long. There is access at only one end of the beach, so as one walks along there are fewer and fewer people. I walk along nearly three miles. It is almost deserted. This is definitely a better balance between private and public. I have the courage to go swimming as well as sunbathing and come back every day for a week.

One day, heading down to the water for a swim, I’m caught off-guard by an elderly couple walking a dog. Their little spaniel runs towards me and it looks like it’s going to be impossible to get out of the way without the dog-walkers getting very close. I consider running back to my towel or making a run for the water, but think the dog would probably chase me and that would just look ridiculous. There is no option but to try to look relaxed. I pat the dog and wait for the encounter.

The couple just walk past with a smile and a wave. I wave back.

Trivial though this encounter might seem, I look back on that moment with great affection.

Somehow, I was accepted, a nude man on a beach. Somehow that was okay, even for fully-clothed people out for a walk with their dog.

Since that time I have visited France, going to the famous resort of Biarritz on the Atlantic coast. It has huge stretches of beach to north and south of the town, but just one small cove reserved for nudists. Here, people would come over and say good morning and shake your hand as they arrived at the beach before 29

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

undressing and getting on with the serious business of sun worship! I guess the French are just so much more relaxed about these things than us Brits! But I still think back to that encounter on the magnificent Welsh beach. It was a special moment of acceptance.

Why this need for acceptance, you may be wondering, and why — more to the point — try to seek acceptance by being nude? I have family and friends, a house and a good occupation. There seems no need for it.

Natalie’s legacy casting a long shadow perhaps?

But maybe I would have arrived at the same thoughts concerning beauty, completeness and acceptance even if there had been no Natalie.

I cannot exactly answer this question. But part of the answer, I think, goes back to what I said earlier about men needing to do something in order to be real men. In fact, what has happened to our society is that everyone and everything now has to somehow prove its worth

— has become commodified, extrinsic and functional. Even beautiful women, perhaps especially beautiful women — the contrast to men’s need to prove themselves — have become commodified. Instead of this, nudity reminds us of our true selves — our wild body — and our place in the wild nature that surrounds us. And such things are beyond transaction. This is true freedom, honesty and vulnerability all at once.

If capitalism plunders the sensuality of the body then what better way to undermine the destructive effects of capitalism than by celebrating all that is sensual. This, it seems to me, is a good starting point for a way of seeing the world. The world is not transaction, the world is beauty and honesty expressed through us as part of nature.

30

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

I’m not saying, of course, that we all must be nudists before we can appreciate nature or enjoy freedom and be honest about our place in the world. That would be silly. But I hope that we can recognise each other’s frailties and vulnerabilities and be able to accept and celebrate each person we encounter.

31

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

32

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

The Encounter Part Two

A young woman finds new confidence from a mysterious couple walking their dog.

Natalie made her way along the beach with a sense of urgency in her step. She wore a heavy parka jacket that came down to her knees. The jacket’s big hood was up and pulled down over her face. She wore baggy jeans and trainers.

This was all somewhat puzzling, as it was a warm summer day with a cloudless blue sky.

But Natalie’s mind was elsewhere as she plodded on. For one thing, there was last night’s strange dream — or perhaps it would be better called a vision. Natalie was in the habit of taking long walks in the countryside around where she lived. She has found a little hollow of ground, surrounded by trees, where she could not be observed and where she could clearly look out for anyone who might be approaching.

But it was an isolated spot, so there were never any intruders. In the summer months Natalie could sunbathe here in the nude, with dappled light warming her body through the leaves of the small trees and gentle breezes caressing her skin. Last night’s dream was set in this secret hollow. She dreamt she was sunbathing and was looking up at the patterns of leaves over 33

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

her head. Then she saw a figure above her, looking a bit like herself, and as naked as she was. There might have been wings stretching out behind the figure, but perhaps it was just the leaves moving in the wind. The figure had one hand stretched up to the sky and in her other hand she was holding something. She let the something go and it landed next to Natalie with a dull thud on the soft mossy grass. It was like a large seed.

Natalie was still recalling the dream when there was a dull thud in the real world. A clump of wet seaweed had hit her as she walked past a group of teenage boys. They were jeering at her.

‘Hey, freak girl! Get ‘em off!’

Natalie walked on, even more sullen. This was just the kind of incident that reminded her of all her fears about life. Natalie was angry a lot of the time. She knew enough to realise that her anger came from fear. Back in her early teens she had been a happy girl and confident about herself. She even remembered swimming in her knickers in a small pond near where she used to live, before her parents decided they should move. Some kids from school had wandered by that day, she remembered, and she hadn’t bothered about them seeing her wearing so little. There was one boy there who had looked at her oddly – as if he had been trying to figure her out. But he had never spoken to her and they

hadn’t

become

friends.

She

felt

incomplete. It was friends and relationships that brought completeness, Natalie believed.

And she was a million miles from achieving it.

There had been the move south with her parents and a dawning awareness for Natalie of how different she was. Different and remarkable.

34

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

Men and boys would stare at her with a kind of hungry longing. And it frightened her. She had taken to covering herself as much as she could, to ward off the stares. Instead of the flowing dresses and bare feet of her youth she took to big coats and baggy trousers. Only when she could get far enough away from people did she dare drop her guard. It was dangerous being a pretty girl, she had decided. Wasn’t it always the pretty girls who were abducted, raped and murdered? And then their beautiful faces would peer out from the TV and newspapers for weeks or months. People would trawl through the lurid details of the poor girl’s fate — with a certain sick fascination, Natalie thought — just as if the girl was being raped and murdered all over again. And then, wasn’t it always pretty girls who were eaten or mutilated or turned into zombies, werewolves and vampires in horror movies? The world had it in for beautiful girls.

Natalie passed by a group of young women about her own age, lying out on the beach topless and with just little thongs on their lower half. They seemed smugly satisfied with themselves, she thought. There was always a cluster of teenage boys nearby, absent-mindedly kicking a ball around, whilst all the while making furtive glances at the thong girls. Those girls looked sexy, Natalie thought, definitely very sexy. Booty wrapped up in ribbons. But she found this a bit of a mind maze. Should women not wear anything they want in public? Yes, she thought. But at the same time were the thong girls inviting trouble? It was a difficult question.

Was Natalie not even worse than the thong girls by sunbathing in the nude, albeit secretly?

As Natalie went further along the beach there 35

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

were fewer and fewer people. This end of the five-mile stretch of sand was an unofficial nude beach and there was plenty of space for the few folk who ventured this far to keep a good distance from each other. Natalie stopped at last. She found a safe little gap amongst the sand dunes and took everything off.

The transformation could not have been more amazing. If an artist were to draw Natalie, they would be accused of tweaking reality towards an unachievable perfection. If a photographer were to have photographed Natalie, they would be accused of ‘Photoshopping’ and air-brushing their way towards an image of unreal beauty.

But there Natalie stood, a real girl, with dark blonde hair tumbling down her back and her soft golden tan from all those days sunbathing at the secret hollow.

Natalie also had a secret place beside a lake where she swam quite often. But it was worth the longer journey to this beach for the thrill of swimming in the sea. It was still risky to be here, she knew. Perhaps more risky than wearing a skimpy swimsuit back along the beach where there were more people. But Natalie’s love for feeling at one with nature was such that she overcame those worries and dared to take a trip to the nude beach.

She had just stepped out from amongst the sheltering sand dunes when a little dog ran up to her – a brown spaniel. Somehow, despite looking around carefully, she hadn’t noticed an elderly couple approaching. Dog-walkers out for a long walk. The dog was jumping up at Natalie. She thought of making a run back to her towel, or sprinting down to the water, but reckoned the dog would only chase her and she would look really stupid. There was no option 36

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

but to pat the dog and wait for the couple to go by, hoping they wouldn’t be offended by her nudity.

Just then, the old woman who owned the dog waved towards her and shouted, ‘You’re SO

beautiful!’ The woman and her husband came closer. ‘You’re so beautiful’, she said again.

‘Please don’t go! Stop for a photo.’

Natalie looked around nervously, wondering how to escape. The woman came right up to her, with hubby not far behind. ‘Just our faces, dear.

Just our faces. You won’t believe it but I was a beautiful young woman like you once.’

Natalie felt she had no choice. She stood nervously beside the woman and hubby lined up in front of them with an ancient-looking camera.

But the woman turned to Natalie saying,

‘Posture, my dear, posture!’ She put a careful hand to the front of one of Natalie’s shoulders and another towards her lower back and gave a gentle push. Natalie straightened up. The woman, who had seemed about her own height, was now almost a head shorter.

Natalie now had to bend her knees to get her face level with the old woman’s. The husband’s camera gave a couple of clicks. Natalie pulled away, hoping the ordeal was now over. But the woman had more to say.

‘Two things I’ve learnt in life. First is posture!

The universe gave you beauty so stand up straight and look the world right in the eye!

And second, be kind! It doesn’t matter what else you do in life, but be kind to everyone. You get whatever gifts the universe has given you for free, so you have to give something back!’

Natalie thought back to her dream the night before. She could almost see again that seed falling from the angel’s hand and landing beside 37

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

her on the grass. She could not think of anything to say. So she gave a funny little bow to the old folk and then walked carefully down to the sea.

Natalie plunged down into the water. There was a huge forest of kelp beneath the waves. This might

have

appeared

ominous

to

some

swimmers, but Natalie swam through it without a thought. Instead her thoughts were on kindness. Her fear and anger over the last few years were hardly a recipe for being kind. In fact, having moved out from her parents, she lived alone and had no friends. She had a job at a green-grocers, which just about paid the rent, but there were only two other staff who hardly spoke. Perhaps kindness was worth the risk?

Perhaps kindness was what she was supposed to give back to life, as the old woman had said.

Rather than dragging people down with her anger, she would try to lift them up instead.

Natalie left the water and walked back up the beach to her towel and clothes. She walked taller than she’d walked for many years.

A few weeks later Natalie was back to the same beach and on another fine summer’s day. She had discarded her big jacket and baggy trousers. She wore a flowing summer dress, open sandals and a wide-brimmed sun hat over her long hair, which hung loose down her back.

‘In fashion at last’, she thought to herself, ‘even if it is the fashion of the 1950’s!’ But in thinking about how she should dress, she had decided it was about the clothes and the person’s character — not about trying to be up to date, or trying to look sexy, or to avoid looking sexy.

She was making a real effort to walk upright and to look ahead, but she tried giving a few friendly smiles to people as she went by.

38

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

The effect of all this was electric. Even the thong girls propped themselves up on their elbows to watch Natalie as she went by. It would take a bit of getting used to, Natalie was thinking. But she had noticed that even those young men and teenage boys that gave her that hungry look would usually return her smile if she chose to smile at them. Only a few would narrow their eyes and look away. Was it worth the risk, smiling at ‘the enemy’? Natalie was unsure, but what was the alternative? Forever being crushed into being a timid, fawning creature, too scared to look at anyone? Wasn’t that just as much of a rape, in its own way?

Just then some figures in the distance caught her attention and interrupted her reverie. Two elderly people with a little dog! Natalie waved to them and quickened her pace to meet them.

But as she approached she found that it was a little black and white spaniel that ran towards her and not a brown dog. And the couple were not the elderly couple who had taken her picture and set her on her new path. They just looked blankly at her as she approached them. But she was sure that … Well, never mind.

The only other time Natalie thought she saw the couple was a couple of months later. She had been sitting in the dunes, looking out at the water. There was a man in the distance and a little brown dog ran up to him. The elderly couple followed on behind. The man patted the dog and then waved at the couple. They waved back. The man was in the nude and he gave a little skip of delight as he ran down to the water’s edge and in for a swim. Funny, he seemed oddly familiar. She hoped he was happy. In her mind, Natalie wished him a good life.

39

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

40

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

Life Class

A life model ponders the meaning of nudity, relationships and enchantment.

Wednesday evening. 7.00pm. The class is beginning. Life drawing, it’s called – which is an odd name, when you stop to think about it. As if people aren’t alive unless they’re naked.

I am the model. Naked in front of some 50

people. Or I should say, nude. Because it’s really a bit of a performance, and we models put on our nudity as if it were a costume. Whilst being naked can be about being truly ourselves, it can also mean to be exposed, vulnerable and powerless. To be nude, by contrast, can often mean to take control, to command the space and to celebrate the body. Which, after all, is what all this is about – I mean, celebrating the body. Life classes don’t go in for costumes like skimpy underwear or what have you. This is not burlesque. Even slipping off a robe at the start of the class is done with a quick flurry, so it doesn’t seem like striptease!

The first few poses are short standing poses.

This is where the theatre begins, because if someone is just standing about they tend to stand in a way that’s not especially interesting!

So the model tries perhaps to throw her weight 41

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

onto one leg, stretch out an arm, that sort of thing. This has the effect of creating some interesting lines in a drawing. A good artist will pick up on the weight distribution and see how it introduces a certain tension and movement into a pose.

It’s a chance for me to look around. The ladies down the front look like they’re glad I’m a girl.

They’ll draw my long hair carefully and probably give me quite a serious face – maybe a bit of a frown. The middle rows – a mixed bag. There will be awkward stick figures right through to careful and charming portraits. Sometimes, someone will strike gold – at least that’s the way I see it. You see, it’s the small things that make a person distinctive. Something like the way they hold their head, a certain look in the eye, a bit of a quirk to the lips. And if you can see these things and draw them then you can capture a person’s personality.

The reason this works so well is that it’s kind of what makes us love other people. Something distinctive, something that marks them out –

and it’s also something that’s likely to endure into middle and old age. People are often distracted by the superficial things. But if you can see beyond that then you can get a glimpse of what makes human love so special. There’s a kind of magic about it – a kind of enchantment.

Anyway, back to my scrutiny of the audience!

A few men in. Men in a life class always look very serious! When it’s a young woman posing then they must put in a bit of an effort to suggest that they’re not enjoying themselves too much! It means they can be quite difficult to read. But there are a few who will go for the

‘idealised body’ kind of drawing – an image that most women find difficult to live up to in real life 42

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

– if indeed we were ever inclined to try.

Into the second half. Longer poses, lying down.

Try not to lie down the way we might normally lie down in bed or on a sofa! It produces what I call the ‘beached whale’ look! Instead, pull a leg up on one side and lie on some cushions. This gives a bit of a curve to the spine and some good lines – a bit of dynamism, even in such a static pose.

I wonder most about these men who produce the ‘perfect body’ kind of drawing. Do they have wives or girlfriends at home? If so, do they show their drawings to their partners? Some guys, if they can get away with it, will just lurch between one pretty girl and another, until they’re too old and ugly for anyone to want them. Is it this kind of guy that draws the idealised kind of body in life classes?

I don’t know. But I’m thinking that such a guy would be better off not getting into a relationship at all if all they really want is a trophy wife. The problem is there’s such a stigma about being alone. And we’re not really very good at admitting what we actually want in life. These guys just follow society’s format of having partners and families, when all they really want is cheap thrills and one-night stands.

Please don’t break hearts! But there are men out there who know what love is and have eyes only for their partner. Failing that though, there are men who know their own weaknesses and do all they can to rise above them. Will you trust them?

And let’s face it, society is a weird thing! When I set off home from here I’ll be in a dark hoodie, baggy sweat pants and trainers. Black and grey. It’s a kind of uniform that everyone has adopted to look anonymous. And as if the 43

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

desire to look anonymous is not puzzling enough, try venturing out on a Friday or Saturday night! Here there are young women dressed in some very puzzling outfits! I’m thinking that girls want to dress as superheroes, and I’m not exactly sure why. Perhaps we are escaping from the world into some of the fantasies that we’re fed. Perhaps the whole thing is to try to escape from the harsh realities of life in a modern society and try to be someone else for a while. I wonder how long it will be before the guys catch up with the girls. I wonder how I’d feel about city streets full of men dressed as superheroes.

It’s easy to confuse fantasy and enchantment.

The

fantasy

is

an

escape,

whilst

the

enchantment is a deeper engagement with the world. The fantasy seems to play into all those superficial things that those guys who shouldn’t be married seem to like. The enchantment is all the more subtle stuff that consistently passes them by.

What does all that say about society? To be honest, I think we’re a bit lost. But I hope I’m wrong. I hope that more people than I actually think are able to see the subtle stuff that makes people beautiful – makes the world beautiful.

The class is ending and there is a final piece of theatre. The model takes a little bow. I take my little bow, and there is polite applause, like we are at an English cricket match.

All this strange theatre! It somehow helps me know who I am, at least a little more. But it makes me realise we so often don’t want to acknowledge our pleasures and our pains. If we could only be more honest with ourselves –

genuinely naked with ourselves – then we could stop pretending to other people.

44

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

Would that make life better? I think so. I hope so.

45

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

46

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

Red Dust

A young woman finds a new life amongst one of Africa’s most remote tribes.

I know what you’re thinking! How come I, a 23-year-old from Essex, England, have ended up here, one of the remotest parts of Africa, to live with this tribe. This tribe who are known for covering themselves in red ochre and otherwise mostly just wear beads. Considered one of the most ‘primitive’ tribes of the world’s remaining indigenous populations (although I’d call them the most wise and sophisticated beings who have ever graced this planet).

Well, it started with a documentary. Put an ordinary English family down into the middle of Africa and see how they cope with a radically different way of life. Great telly! The family was my mum, my dad, two brothers and me.

To be honest we had a huge winnebago and plenty of supplies. We could almost have avoided any interaction at all with the tribespeople, if we’d wanted to. And that, indeed, was what the family did! Except, that is, for me.

So now, having finished school, I’m back. And this time, I’m intending to stay. No mod-cons.

My small suitcase of Western clothes will be 47

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

stashed away in case I ever go home. The only other things I have with me from ‘civilisation’

are paper, envelopes and pens, all carefully wrapped up to protect them from insects and damp weather. My only contact with home will be letters, which are passed on via the health workers that visit the tribe every few months.

The tribe remember me and the women take me away at once to get kitted out in the red ochre that covers their whole bodies and is even woven into their hair – our hair. Some have gifted necklaces and strings of beads to go around my waist and hang down as a beaded skirt. Nevertheless, I’m rather ‘bead-poor’ for a woman of my age. Children start off naked for a few years – apart from the red dust – but then start to accumulate belly bands and necklaces that may stay with them their whole lives. Or they may be given away, or laid into the grave of a departed loved one. It is not easy to figure out why something is kept and why something is given away. But the tribe seems to know instinctively what is the appropriate behaviour.

Anyway, I’m to spend the first few days of my new life working with the older women, getting

‘beaded up’! These women are mostly too old to work in the fields, although they may do a bit of cooking. Apart from that, they sit in little groups, chattering and stringing beads. Even now, one is collapsed in laughter at some joke shared amongst them. This is a happy pastime.

What a way to spend your old age!

But after that, it’s the fields for me, like everyone else – even the youngest of children.

My tribe only does crops and some foraging – no hunting, no trade, no money, no shops. It’s a precarious existence, for sure, and a year of drought could wipe out almost everyone – only a 48

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

little food can be stored into another year.

Thankfully, in recent times, the government is able to step in and provide food aid in times of crisis. There are some plastic containers and old tin cans here and there from previous such interventions.

This is a lush place normally though, and crops grow in abundance. It takes a few weeks for me to get through a whole working day in such heat though. I am forced by the friendly tribespeople to sit in the shade. Children bring me water.

There are no fences or boundaries. The tribe has no real concept of owning land or being part of a nation. Wild animals wander nearby and sometimes make their way through the fields and orchards. Depending on the animal, the tribe either tolerates this or makes some efforts to drive the animals out. But it’s all done with the feeling that the animals have as much right to the land as we have. Lions are (thankfully) mostly frightened of humans, so they take a wide berth. The most problematic are elephants. Elsewhere in Africa there are signs that humans tried to erect earth mounds as a protection against such beasts – and it may have been so long ago that some even more impressive creatures were still around, like the giant rhino and the larger species of big cat.

But well, you can imagine the labour involved in such fortification. Today, it’s more a case of distraction! Somehow the tribe knows when elephants are approaching days in advance and will make preparations to go out and re-direct them away from the village and the fields.

(Elephants themselves will cross dozens and even hundreds of miles for water, somehow knowing where they will find it.) Likewise, working in the fields, there will be a ripple of 49

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

excitement when other creatures are spotted and everyone will know within a few minutes. It might be a female cheetah with her cubs, or a herd of antelope – somehow the word is out, and I only catch up with the news hours later!

I’ve been essentially adopted by a couple who have two teenage sons and their own hut. Huts are mud reinforced with timber posts and covered in grass roofs. The living arrangements shift depending on family groupings. A family will likely have its own hut for a while, but may also take in an elderly parent, aunt or uncle. All this seems to happen very easily and with little discussion. Meanwhile, teenagers naturally make eyes at each other, disappear into the fields or forests from time to time and before you know it (or at least, before I know it) kerpow! They’re a couple! Once babies arrive a new hut may go up, or an existing hut vacated by some older folk and the young couple have a place to rear their kids. And that’s it! No fuss.

No mortgage. No bills.

All this is done with so much friendliness and cheerfulness that it makes me weep sometimes when I see it. That’s why I say my tribe is the most wise and gracious that has ever walked the Earth.

The only real intrusion of the 21st century (apart from the food aid I mentioned earlier) is the visits from the health workers. After a few months in the tribe the sight of their landrover, medical equipment and uniforms feels like an alien invasion to me. These folk are still Africans, but very much Africans of the Westernised variety. It’s difficult to know what they think about the tribe – whether they think we’d all be better off in a city, or whether they respect the choice of living as part of the land.

50

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

But anyway, babies are weighed, medicines distributed, a few minor ailments are sorted on the spot and from time to time someone is carted off to the hospital, over a hundred miles distant. There are herbs and remedies amongst the tribe of course, but generally Western medicine is accepted. Before all this, someone in chronic pain or close to death – well, it was just a case of easing the pain and giving them the most comfortable journey into the hereafter.

The tribe calls the land ‘home’ and the next life as well. Death is ‘going home’.

I wonder if I will ever ‘go home’, in the sense of go back to England. I hope to make it through most of my life here, if not all of it, but who knows. But whether I go back or not, I hope I will always call this tribe and this land my home.

51

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

52

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

Emerald Web

Resting in a hammock, high up in a tree, some reflections on the nature of pleasure.

I had a tree house when I was a kid. Way high up in the branches, it seemed. I visit it now, as a grown-up, but cannot fit through its little doorway. Even so it brings back happy memories of days spent in leaves and sunlight.

I’ve certainly not given up on this pursuit! Now though I’ve tied a big hammock in the branches, even higher off the ground, and I clamber up on sunny days to spend time with the trees and with my thoughts.

Today, strangely, I’m thinking about tattoos!

I’d clambered up to the hammock and now I lie here contemplating some henna tattoos just painted onto my skin. The shifting sunlight through the leaves mixes with the henna patterns. An emerald web of sunlight. It’s hypnotic. Hennas are temporary of course, and one day I might get some permanent marks.

But the whole notion of putting designs onto our skins had got me thinking.

Skin’s a funny thing when you think about it. A surface onto the outside world. So the surface of it is not quite us, but not quite part of the outside world either.

53

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

When we draw or paint onto our skin we are kind of claiming it as our own. I am my body –

we seem to be saying – I own my body. It’s a defence against the world in a way, but also a statement. These images or words – the markings seem to be saying – are so important that I’m going to fuse them with my naked flesh. Some would say the tattooed body is never quite naked again – the images are always there as a kind of clothing. But I think I disagree. In a way we are more naked with our tatts. Not only are we baring flesh, we’re baring our thoughts, our hopes, our art and our style as the images and words say who we are on the inside. That’s vulnerability!

So why do it? You might be asking. Well, for me at least, it’s about pleasure. Nude bodies can just be a bit boring. It’s always more interesting to put on some markings or painting or writing!

And this gets me thinking about pleasure itself.

What’s that all about?

Three things come to mind straight away.

There’s knowledge, there’s desire and then there’s pleasure. Knowledge, I’m thinking, is what gets us into trouble! Humans are always living in their heads and inevitably each person thinks what’s in their head is right. So maybe some other folk – even all other folk – are wrong. Trouble!

We are really all about desires – bodily desires.

That’s what all the knowledge and the thinking blots out. If we stopped to listen to our bodies we’d have a whole different view of the world and of ourselves.

At the same time though we can’t just jump from one desire to another. We need to sort them, choose them, so we can have pleasure, happiness and joy.

54

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

The desires we indulge and the pleasures we choose – this is what defines who we are.

What though, you may be wondering, is the link back to tattoos? (Apart, of course, from tatts just being a pleasure in themselves?) Well, as I’d been thinking earlier, marking the skin is a two-way street. We claim ownership of our skin by marking it, but we also give those marks to the world as a gift. And touching is a two-way street as well, like none of the other senses. To touch is always to be touched in return.

I’m thinking something similar might happen with pleasure. Here’s how that might go.

When we think of pleasure we mostly think in selfish ways. That we each try to maximise our own pleasure – that’s an economist’s view of the world!

Others will tell you there’s no pleasure like shared pleasure. What would that be? Perhaps the liberal lefty’s view of the world? Closer, but not there yet.

Instead I’m thinking of pleasure as a two-way street, like tatts and touch. It defines who we are – we own our own bodies through pleasure, but it can also be a gift. Giving pleasure might sometimes be like sharing pleasure, but it can also be very different.

Seems though – and perhaps you’re with me on this one – that there’s a bit of sacrifice involved in this. A gift I want to share with the world?

Being pleasure for other people? Is that really what pleasure is about? (Or half of it anyway.) And, ‘giving pleasure’? Sounds a bit pervy as well!

The sun’s gone behind a cloud. The canopy of leaves seems dark all of a sudden. But getting in and out of this hammock is a big effort! I’ll just hang on in for a bit longer – see if I can 55

W I L D B O D Y W I L D N A T U R E

follow this train of thought to the end.

So let’s try this:

Make someone laugh.

Make someone happy.

Make someone proud to be themselves.

Give someone care.

Give someone love.

And when I say ‘someone’ I guess I don’t just mean some other human. I think I need to include the animals, the birds the fish the insects the trees and the plants in all this too.

When we do these things we make ourselves vulnerable. We are metaphorically naked for other people and that invites others to be comfortable with being themselves in return.

Still a big ask?

Well, I’m sticking with it!

Pleasure is a two-way street. Go write it on your skin.

56