Month: February 2019

It has been a week since my last post. I have to plead being insanely busy as an excuse. I have been preoccupied with life. I am in Ecuador escaping the polar vortex that is terrorising Canada. I am with my wife and there is an eleven-kilometre long beach which calls to us every day. There are others in the community whom we know and with whom we interact. We wander the streets of the village and say hola to the locals to whom we have become familiar faces. And then, there is my writing and editing work. In addition, there is a trip being planned for this autumn. Of course, I am using the trip as research for one or more new books yet to be written. I know, not much of an excuse at all.

It is this last item that has seriously been eating up my time. Together, we have decided on an August departure date and destination. We will leave Canada and land in Amsterdam. That should have been the easiest part, but to find a date for return plane tickets demanded that I know how long we needed to spend in the Netherlands, Belgium, Northwestern France, Luxembourg, and Western Germany. Of course, what did we want to see, and where would we book accommodations to make it happen? So, you see where this is going … it takes a lot of time to make this happen.

Yesterday, the first draft of our autumn trip was fleshed out. Now the pressure is off. To celebrate the result, I began to re-publish my books with Draft2Digital – D2D – so that I can sell my books through other portals such as Barnes & Noble, Apple Books, Kobo, and several others. That will keep me busy for a few more days. I will publish the results in another post in the future. Interesting enough, I already sold a book through D2D even though I have just begun the process.

I will still be spending at the minimum three hours each day on the beach with my wife. We walk between eight and ten kilometres each day before taking time to play in the surf, dodging children and errant surfers who are learning to master the waves. As they say, life’s a beach.

It’s another rain day here in Ecuador. I have to admit that I am appreciating the break from our regular routines. And, I’m sure my skin is appreciating the respite from constant sunshine as well. Sometimes the expression, “into each life some rain must fall“, needs to be seen in a positive light. As I write this, it is just before time for lunch with my wife. I have been working on the edit of the first René Beauchemin novel, and now have only forty pages left to complete that task. When that is done, I will then tackle the second novel to complete the conversion from the 3rd person point-of-view to the 1st person.

You might have noticed that I have edited [cropped] the images used in the past few days. My rationale is simply to enable sharing of these posts as much as possible in the social media which appears to be more restrictive than previously. The images don’t hide the fact of my being fully nude. They simply don’t display genitals. Some people are offended by this cropping, something that I find a bit troubling. I mean, why does it matter. Why do they need to see the genitals when the subject of a photo is obviously naked as the day he or she was born. With these type of complaints, I suspect that it really isn’t about “purity” at all. Rather, it is about “puritanism” and fascination with human genitals.

The word naturism is loosing its identity as a non-sexual belief and lifestyle. It is being co-opted by vested interests who want to own nudity for commercial purposes. I know that you have likely searched for naturist images only to find porn and soft-porn images appear in the search, more often than not, predominating. For many trying to navigate an entry into naturism, this is what they meet up with. There is little doubt that the idea of naturism as a sex-riddled cult is reinforced in the process. So how do we reclaim our identity when the word naturist and nudist has now become synonymous with pornography?

A dark and dreary morning has finally turned into a hot, steamy, and sunny afternoon. My wife and I were able to enjoy a good portion of our walk in sunshine, the return half of a six-kilometre hike along the beach. So far this afternoon, I have been busy with a few social media tasks. I am the administrator for the FCN Facebook page, the FCN Twitter account, and the FCN MeWe page. I have to admit that because I am also heavily invested in my writing and editing, I don’t do these social media portals the justice they deserve. Still, there is a presence on all three that tells the world that the Federation of Canadian Naturists is alive and well, even if it is winter in Canada. Just to make sure you know, you don’t have to be a member of the FCN to join, like, or follow any or all social media pages. Feel free to make a cyber presence.

I am one of the lucky FCN members who flees the polar vortex that hovers over Canada, for a place in the sunny south where I can enjoy more of a naturist life. At home in Canada, I would be hiding indoors with the heat cranked up while wearing woolly socks, if not more, to stay warm.

Holly has again allowed me to bring her images here for another post. The two of us have been working on this post for more than a month. With the choice of photos made, the delay was due to my busyness with other writing projects. Somehow, in the warmth of Ecuador, I lost the sense of winter that others like Holly are experiencing. Then, I got a message from my son telling be about the ridiculously cold night in Northern Alberta, Canada. With the wind chill, it went to -52 Celsius … that’s -62 on the Fahrenheit scale. Of course, in the United Kingdom, it isn’t nearly as cold, but it is cold enough to dissuade most from stepping outside while naked. If one is going to go outside, it typically would be to go into a sauna or a hot tub which is precisely what Holly has done in this image. Just in case you were wondering, all of the images I have used of Holly are with her permission, and are found in her Twitter feed.

So, that leaves images to be mostly of the indoor variety for the most part for those who prefer to spend as many hours of the day while nude, as possible. The original plan was to have Holly’s indoor photos show the positive side of indoor nudity. With her partner having a camping trailer which I am envious, the choice was made to have one of these images grace today’s post. Several images were posted to Twitter, the social media of choice for Holly, including this one. Holly’s smile is proof enough that when one is with a person that shares one’s passion, then life is more than good. Holly has been blessed with a partner in crime when it comes to enjoying naturist adventures.

Like others who are Holly’s Twitter friends, I have watch Holly bloom since her first foray into the world of naturism. It is something that I can understand, as when I get the opportunity to be with others who value being clothing free, I feel a powerful swelling of soul. This is how it is supposed to be, naked and free. Yet even when I am alone, being nude works like some sort of magic potion to lift my spirits. No mood-altering substance can equal the experience. To share these experiences with another person who is “significant” is priceless. Holly is one such lucky lady. She shares that magical feeling through her photos and her words with almost eleven thousand followers on Twitter. I guess I am lucky as well, as we have become trusted friends.