Through a Naturist Lens

I got a haircut this morning and I now feel I look the way I see myself – neither scalped nor shaggy. Once that was done and we had our morning walk, my task was to finish making a step stool of sorts for my youngest grandchild. The wood was cut, holes were drilled and the whole assembly was put together before it was time to have lunch. This afternoon it is being painted by my wife. The finished product will allow the little guy who is going to turn one before too long, to stand at the counter top to be involved while mother and sister are busy doing whatever at the counter. Older sister who is three, also has her own stand.

Naturally, this meant no time for writing this morning, and so far, none this afternoon. We did get out for a quick four kilometre walk. Normally we walk about twelve to thirteen minutes to travel one kilometre, today, the pace was between ten and eleven minutes per kilometre. There was a strong wind which was blowing snow pellets directly into our faces for a good part of our walk. We wanted the walk over as quickly as possible, especially since we had other activities waiting for our attention.

On a different note, I am more than surprised at how our neighbouring country, the USA, is fracturing during the pandemic. Large public gatherings are protesting “stay home, stay safe” directives, defying social distancing. Today that same public is calling for President Trump to fire the man responsible for the well-being of America, Dr. Fauci. Strangely, a similar crowd is calling for the Prime Minister to fire the doctor who is in charge of keeping Canada safe and healthy, Dr. Tam. Canada, unlike the USA, collectively follows the directives of Dr. Tam which has allowed us to test more, self-isolate more, and somehow that has resulted in a much better result than that of our southern neighbours. The angry opposition is finding itself more and more distant from the mainstream of the Canadian population.

I don’t want to make Covid19 the focus of my post here, or my posts in general, but it is hard to ignore the pandemic, especially when it touches every single person on the planet in some form or other. So to help change the channel, I turn to my writing and I listen to music. Another day will pass and another day will come. Now, it is time for me to return to my current work-in-progress.

Some days are more frustrating than others, and then there is that moment when the universe sends you a message so that you come back to your senses. For myself, and in my opinion, frustration to life is a personal response, not necessarily a conscious response. And to be honest, it is rarely a conscious response.

I am a laid back person and what frustrates my wife or others, typically doesn’t frustrate me. I don’t for a moment discount the real frustration that others feel. We all have our own degrees of tolerance for various types of situations, a range of tolerance responses. Our feeling responses are based on our individual life history. What then frustrates me, doesn’t typically match up with what frustrates others.

For example, I get frustrated when I sense I don’t have control of my personal world, especially when it comes to nudity.  While walking in the country today, I got frustrated. I saw the hills where I would walk completely free, free-hiking. I ached to be free-hiking, yet here I was, bundled up in three layers, a necessary three layers, in order to stay warm while walking.

Just a month ago, I wore next to nothing for my long-distance hikes – a pair of tan through mini briefs. At appropriate locations, even these briefs would disappear and I would savour sunshine on every square inch/cm of my body for literally hours at a time. Now, I try to capture the same feeling while the temperatures try to nudge the zero Celsius mark on the thermometer, a few moments at a time. For those few moments, frustration dissipates.

Yesterday evening, just before eight, I went onto the back deck and saw the colours of the sunset to the west-northwest. I forgot about the chill [cold for many others] and I simply breathed it all in. At that moment, I knew that somehow I was blessed. I had my health, I had my freedom, I had my home, and I was with my life-mate.  I breathed freely and was frustration free.

Find your magical moments and breathe.

Like many other places in Canada and northern USA, we are again getting snow. It is the soft, fluffy kind of snow that will quickly disappear in a matter of hours when the sky clears. Like almost everyone else on the planet, I am wanting this whole Covid19 mess to be over. However, I am not about to push any boundaries with regards to closing social distancing for the next while. At my age, being prudent comes with the territory of having grey hair.

We went out for our six kilometre morning walk in the countryside, another four kilometres are planned for the late afternoon, if weather permits. Today is a writing day with me working on two projects, the audio space opera which I publish twice weekly for my grandchildren, and the naturist post-pandemic novel. Both are coming along well in my opinion. I am avoiding as much as possible, anything about Covid19 in social media and main stream media.

It is better for my mental health to park myself in a light area of the house with a cup of tea and my laptop. My go to place for light is the living room with its large windows. In our home, the draperies are only closed once evening darkness has settled in. My reclining lounge chair is comfortable and with a padded laptop surface to serve as a desk, I am set. All that remains is to be willing to write. This is my indoor naturist nirvana moment.

The sun is out. The temperature is still below zero, but with the backyard protected from a southern breeze, I actually enjoyed a few moments in the yard. There is a promise for above zero temperatures in the afternoon which should make for a pleasant afternoon of drinking tea au naturel on the back deck … as long as there is sunshine and the wind doesn’t become a factor. I can’t believe just how good it feels to be outside in my natural state.

I just received an email from my local [defined as being local as in the closest – 4 hours distant] naturist site, Green Haven. Someone is selling their trailer there for $9000. It is tempting though I already own a trailer, albeit a much smaller trailer. The problem is, I don’t know how often I would get to the trailer. Time, circumstance, and weather are always limiting factors. For example, one year I will manage almost three weeks spread out over the summer, and then the next year perhaps only four days during which time I still have wind and rain making for a less-than-perfect outing.

The world is changing in a hurry and none of us knows how this change will impact naturist havens. Will we be able to even get to our naturist sanctuaries this year? Will the world become even more reactionary and fundamentalist in the aftermath of the current pandemic? Will the world become more liberal and open to nudity which would then leave very little motivation to travel distances and pay fees for the opportunity to be nude, when we could have all of this at home? With so many unknowns, it is hard to make a decision that has a significant cost.

How do you envision the future of naturism in the post-pandemic world? Will we be using our naturist venues more or less? Will the economic cost be too much for a world that is suffering huge disruptions to the local, regional, national, and international economies? I would like to hear your thoughts.

I’ve just come back from our first walk in the countryside since our return to Canada on March 29th. Unlike during a walk in Ecuador, I never did manage to feel warm even though the walking pace was good and brisk. In Ecuador, I wore only a tan-through Kiniki bathing suit, mini briefs. And at times when the conditions were right, nothing at all. Here on the prairies, I wore two layers of pants including wind pants, three layers on the top half of my body, double layer mitts-gloves, a tuque, and a scarf that served as a face mask.

With the temperature at -12 Celsius and a brisk breeze from the northwest bringing the temperature closer to -20 C., there wasn’t any hope of staying warm, let alone warming up and seating beneath my winter parka. Still, it was worth it. Likely I will go out for a second walk this afternoon when the temperature is supposed to warm up to about -5. It’s hard to believe that it is springtime as it feels like it is still winter time. This is definitely not the weather for free-hiking, for the liberation from clothing while walking in the abandoned countryside.

That is the weather on the prairies, a constant set of wave patterns that bounce between winter and spring until the summer when a different wave pattern appears that might throw in a spring-like day, followed by a week that is all autumn, before returning to summer. When I hear about the waves of covid19 that are expected to test our adaptations to a new normal, a normal that has yet to define itself, I look at the evidence of nature on the prairies and can better understand.

Easter weekend this year had some snow, some sunshine, and we were tempted to head out for a walk in spite being in quarantine. Many people that we knew just couldn’t self-discipline as they said enough to social distancing and travelled to visit family for Easter. In places where the weather was actually nice, the abandonment of the distancing principle was almost an epidemic. Many even protested the whole idea of self-distancing citing rights and freedoms. Though the sober voices of our leaders continued to tell us otherwise, our immediate perceptions of reality convinced us that “enough is enough.”

Unlike the next wave of winter, it isn’t just a matter of finding our winter clothing or turning up the thermostats in our homes. Covid19 doesn’t respect our attitudes and certainties. We let down our precautionary measures and a new wave will catch us unprepared. And, we will likely blame someone else for our own behaviours – government leaders, health professionals, a foreign power – just like we blame the weatherman for an unexpected storm that returns us to winter for a while.

We have a long way to go as a collective. We will suffer for our arrogance, our entitlement, our projection of responsibility onto others.

This morning, I woke up to clear skies. With dawn, the sun made an appearance and promised a sunny day. Mid-way through the morning, everything had changed and it began to snow. This is normal for the Canadian prairies. The only certitude is that the world, the weather, and life is dynamic and volatile. With the wind now up, I have decided to stay indoors after a short time outdoors. While outdoors, I managed to cut a piece of wood for a new shelf. Of course, I was doing all of this while unclothed.

Now, I am inside, nice and warm. This afternoon, there is a learning practice run using Zoom to prepare for tomorrow’s extended-family Easter Sunday gathering at distance. So far, the efforts appear to be working quite well once individuals get a bit of experience.  Like the dynamic and changing weather, we are learning about computer-mediated communication in a dynamic manner. The need for learning new ways to relate to each other in these days of covid19 social distancing, is vital.

Connectedness. Being connected in some manner with others is vital to one’s well-being. As people have learned in the past, as long as there is a sense of being connected, one is able to better navigate being alone. In some extreme cases of isolation, that feeling of being connected is often projected onto imaginary friends. When some see one talking to oneself, it could be that was is observed is a real conversation with absent others. Of course, being present face-to-face [f2f] is the optimum means of enabling and enhancing connectedness. Social media and video-conferencing platforms are likely the second best option. Audio [telephones, etc.] connection is next with chat [text] connections rounding out the most prevalent means we use to stay connected to others.

In spite of these options, people still feel disconnected for one reason or other regardless of whether one is in a face-to-face situation or in a chatroom conversation. The means are there, but there remains an internal disconnect. During Covid19, the problem of feeling disconnected and alone is magnified. For many, it needs the catalyst of someone they know, even if only slightly, to breach the isolation being felt. Knowing that, we each need to reach out to others, especially the ones in our lives who have gone silent. One never knows if that will save a life, or save a person’s sanity.

Be there for others, and you might find that others are there for you. This is who we are as humans. We are social beings.

This morning, I woke up to clear skies. With dawn, the sun made an appearance and promised a sunny day. Mid-way through the morning, everything had changed and it began to snow. This is normal for the Canadian prairies. The only certitude is that the world, the weather, and life is dynamic and volatile. With the wind now up, I have decided to stay indoors after a short time outdoors. While outdoors, I managed to cut a piece of wood for a new shelf. Of course, I was doing all of this while unclothed.

Now, I am inside, nice and warm. This afternoon, there is a learning practice run using Zoom to prepare for tomorrow’s extended-family Easter Sunday gathering at distance. So far, the efforts appear to be working quite well once individuals get a bit of experience.  Like the dynamic and changing weather, we are learning about computer-mediated communication in a dynamic manner. The need for learning new ways to relate to each other in these days of covid19 social distancing, is vital.

Connectedness. Being connected in some manner with others is vital to one’s well-being. As people have learned in the past, as long as there is a sense of being connected, one is able to better navigate being alone. In some extreme cases of isolation, that feeling of being connected is often projected onto imaginary friends. When some see one talking to oneself, it could be that was is observed is a real conversation with absent others. Of course, being present face-to-face [f2f] is the optimum means of enabling and enhancing connectedness. Social media and video-conferencing platforms are likely the second best option. Audio [telephones, etc.] connection is next with chat [text] connections rounding out the most prevalent means we use to stay connected to others.

Despite these options, people still feel disconnected for one reason or other regardless of whether one is in a face-to-face situation or in a chatroom conversation. The means are there, but there remains an internal disconnect. During Covid19, the problem of feeling disconnected and alone is magnified. For many, it needs the catalyst of someone they know, even if only slightly, to breach the isolation being felt. Knowing that, we each need to reach out to others, especially the ones in our lives who have gone silent. One never knows if that will save a life, or save a person’s sanity.

Be there for others, and you might find that others are there for you. This is who we are as humans. We are social beings.

Writing is almost exhausting work at times. Since I am now involved in a number of projects, I find myself needing to just sit back a bit to recoup a bit of energy before moving on to yet another writing task.

Unfortunately, like too many others, I find myself slipping into a trance of silence. Looking out the windows of my home, that silence is magnified with empty streets with only a rare half ton truck causing ripples in the odd puddle. And then, aside from fleeting thoughts blowing through my mind like old leaves blowing down an empty street. I hear my own silence. For too many hours a day, not a sound leaves my mouth.

There is a problem with this silence. It is at this time that the mind screams in protest and the barriers we have built over a lifetime to hide our shadows, begin to crumble. The silence begins to turn into a cacophony of unvoiced noise. And like others, I turn to social media in hopes of drowning out that deafening silence.

This morning, this video-song appeared, The Sounds of Silence. In the 1960s and 70s, I played this song as a folk musician. I was a solitary singer in a world that was deafening with life. I stood outside, at least mentally and emotionally. I embraced that silence. It helped me silence the inner voices that wanted me to remember a myriad of abuses of my childhood. The song was therapeutic. I then listened to this song again this morning and discovered a different message, one that was prophetic, one that talked about humanity as a whole, not about me as a point of singularity. And then, I knew that I had to send this song out to you. It is strange beyond measure that this came to me on Good Friday. And that is all I have to say about that.

Life is deeper and richer than one could ever imagine. I don’t want to waste whatever days remain to me. I dare to live as authentically as I can, and that includes my writing, my relationships, and not hiding behind clothing pretending to be a clone of what is acceptable. There is no time to waste in embracing one’s self.

It’s day ten of my quarantine as mandated by the National Government of Canada. The day began as do most of my days – wake up early, put up the furnace [we put it down to 15 Celsius for the night], turn on the coffee, and then open the draperies before we sit on our love seat to enjoy our first cup of the day.

Then, as usual with out new reality, we both reached out to our kids and grandkids for chat opportunities. I then recorded my second part of a Science Fiction story for my grandchildren, a story that has all of them and their parents, as well as a few friends as the main characters. It is a fun activity for me, and one they are quick to tell me they like. Once the audio file was posted for them, I returned to my Post-Pandemic Naturist story. Before lunch, part two was completed. It is now up on the Patreon site, scheduled for release on Monday.

Then, with everything flowing smoothly, we got a message. One of our older nephews was airlifted from his town to a city. He is 60 and is unconscious and on a ventilator. There is no diagnosis yet, but all parties believe it is CV19. Two days earlier, another nephew was diagnosed with an aggressive case of prostate cancer. Suddenly, the world has caught up with our family which somehow had miraculously been spared much in the way of tragedy. This has ceased being a mental exercise and has become very visceral.

The Federal Government also released its tentative predictions for the effect of Covid19 in terms of infections and death rates. The best case scenario sees just under 5,000 deaths. The worst case scenario has nearly 50,000 deaths. No matter which way one looks at these numbers, this will forever change our country and its people. What is almost as powerful in generating a change in who we are as a people and how we are as a nation, will be the impact on how we will govern ourselves once this has passed, and how we live together as a people.

What will change? Will we become a kinder population [we are already noted as being a kind people on the International stage]? Will we become more tolerant of differences? Or, will we retreat into our clans with little trust for those not within our clans? I don’t have any answers or predictions. What are your thoughts?

It’s day nine of our quarantine here in Canada. I am finding that the past few days have been working well for me as I return to investing a lot of my time to writing. I am enough of a realist to know that I will again find myself retreating into the shadow world from time to time in the future.

I just ordered a microphone, a quality one to replace the headphone/microphone set that is now somewhere in South America. When it arrives in about six weeks – yes, it appears that non-essential deliveries will delay its arrival – I will get to finally being able to record my novels into audio books. I literally am filling in my time with ease. There isn’t the faintest hint of being bored.

For my well-being during this pandemic, all I find myself needing is sunshine, good food, the constant companionship of my wife, and the virtual company of my children and grandchildren, and the freedom to be clothing free.

What are your strategies for maintaining good mental health during the Covid19 crisis? I know that many are not doing well. If you are one of those who find themselves struggling, I encourage you to reach out to family, friends, and/or mental health counsellors. I know that a number of such counsellors are reducing their fees where there is need.

A number of my colleagues are now using online media to provide such counselling since access to offices has mostly been lost for so many in need. I include myself as a mental-health resource though I have been retired and not taking clients for a few years. If needed, you can contact me via email [rglongpre@gmail.com] and we can discuss your situation.

Feel free to make comments here, or DM at my Twitter account [https://twitter.com/SkyCladTherapy]. We are all in this together.