Wednesday, August 24, 2005

There is an isolated mailbox in the dunes on the Western end of Sunset Beach. It's labeled Kindred Spirit and just sits on the beach full of little notebooks for whoever happens to come by. Some people write to God, or a departed relative, or just to"Kindred Spirit" about the goings-on at the beach.

Michael and I rode our bikes in that direction. We just wanted to get to that end of the island, but when we passed the mailbox on the way, we decided to stop and have a look. There was a family there, so we played in the water for a while and gave them time to finish up. When they left, we went up to the mailbox and started leafing through the pages of the notebooks.

That's when the naked people arrived. Right, that end of the island is a nude beach, but there are no signs and it's so deserted that you don't really think about it until you see something you hadn't planned on seeing. (Michael's mother says she has never seen anyone naked, but from a distance she has seen some guys in tight white underpants.) You can't really get mad when you see nude people on a nude beach but these two, a man and a woman, plunked their naked selves right down on the bench next to us. Naked. Waiting to get to the mailbox. Now how are we supposed to write anything with naked people chomping at the naked bit behind us? I mean, what am I supposed to write? "Dear Kindred Spirit, as I mentally prepare for a year of travel with this special person, I can't help but think of... naked strangers breathing down my neck." I mean...? So we left and went swimming again.

At this point I should mention that Michael insisted that I not censor myself. But when we had that conversation, back when I was first contemplating this travelogue idea, I was worrying more about someone finding out how much I loathe e-mail forwards and getting their feelings hurt, not his mom thinking we're deviants. But ok, Michael.

Eventually we decided that since we were at a nude beach, we might as well be nude. Why not? It was just us and some seagulls. So we took off our suits and ran whooping into the water. Ok, maybe I am the only one who whooped. Being loud is way more scary/risky/rebellious for me than being naked.

And then later when they asked, all in joking innocence, we lied about it to Michael's family. Twice. (Sorry, Simon family.) It's pretty tame though, no one was even around. Well, for a few minutes there a whole herd of people suddenly started biking down the beach toward us, and hiking out of the dunes and emerging from the surf on giant seashells and stuff and we had to hide in the water. Some lady walked back and forth at the water's edge with a glass jar for, like, ten minutes. But then finally everyone left again and we put our suits back on and it really wasn't that big of a deal at all.

HOURS ON THE BUS: 0

 

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