Sorry to disappoint. You won’t find a pic of Elizabeth Hurley here, rocking a bikini at 57. Google again. You’ll find her.
I’ve blogged about swimsuits before. One tiny article of clothing exposes so much in terms of skin and insecurities. They say fashion goes in cycles and I’m still waiting for men’s early twentieth-century swim apparel to return to vogue.
Alas, we’re stuck with bare chests and bellies at least until Vogue taps Harry Styles’s shoulder for another buzzy photo shoot to offer an uptick in subscriptions. Until then, my dilemma continues. I love swimming, but I hate suiting up.
Swimming has played a major part in my life. I grew up privileged with a pool in our backyard. My family spent spring breaks on the Gulf of Mexico in Florida where I’d splash about in the waves and didn’t think twice about combing the beach for seashells, no shoes, no shirt required. In summer, we’d spend weeks at our family cottage on a beach along the Ottawa River, where I’d join friends playing King of the Raft, canoeing and water skiing. I had a favorite Ottawa Valley shirt I wore too much, but most of the time I went around shirtless, my pale skin turning from the traditional first burn of the season—ouch!—to some shade of bronze, with ever-growing freckle constellations.
I was on swim team in high school, by no means a star athlete; it was my exit pass to get away from all the other uncoordinated geeks who weren’t on the football team, the basketball team, the track team, the tennis team or even in golf. After only a week of acculturation at my East Texas high school, I knew I’d face permanent ostracization if I stayed enrolled in basic P.E. Swim team was one small step above P.E. and it spared me from dreaded rope climbs and being full- or half-nelsoned on never-washed wrestling mats by sweaty guys who’d hadn’t been told it was time to start wearing deodorant.
Throughout university, I lifeguarded during the summers. I worked at a pool operated by an association supporting persons with developmental disabilities and, after my first week there, I knew I wanted to become a special education teacher. So, yeah, swimming means a lot to me.
Somewhere along the way, I stopped being nonchalant about wearing a Speedo and letting my tummy catch some rays. I became aware of guys like Leif Garrett and Shaun Cassidy with surfer bods gracing teen fan magazines and Tom Selleck and Lee Majors captured in beachy shots for People. I’d glimpse at myself in the mirror—no chest, no abs, a fleshy midriff that couldn’t pass that dadgum Special K “pinch more than an inch” test…which, to this day, I believe damaged so many psyches. There have been class action lawsuits against tobacco manufacturers, but I’m still waiting to opt in on legal action against Kellogg’s.
I suddenly felt like I should cover up. It’s not like I lost confidence. I never had that in the first place. I just stopped being oblivious. I didn’t have anything to show off. It would be better for all if I shirted up.
Photos of me in just a swimsuit after high school are extremely rare. I don’t ever give anyone the opportunity to snap a shot. I swim laps in pools where I’m 98% certain I will not run into anyone I know. At the cottage, I won’t swim in front of it if anyone else is there. If it’s unbearably hot, I’ll walk to the end of the beach—“It’s not as rocky there,” I say—and take a quick dip before covering myself in a towel which I always leave at the shore’s edge. I no longer get burns or tans or a single freckle much less a constellation because skin exposure is too brief.
There was one photo I actually allowed to be taken in late summer 2014. While flying somewhere, I’d picked up the airline’s magazine—remember those?—and read about swim vacations where people swim each day as part of their travel journey in Croatia, Slovenia or even in Lake Powell, Arizona. When I did the research back home, the trips turned out to be quite pricey, but I stumbled upon information about a monthly swim from Alcatraz to shore in San Francisco. I lived in a rural area on BC’s Sunshine Coast at the time and did a bit of open water ocean swimming to train for the event. A colleague who was in a paddling club volunteered to take me along with her outrigger team one Saturday morning, venturing farther out to sea so the I could jump in the water and swim along the craft, the outrigging crew serving as my guides. She snapped a picture of me with my shirt off just as I was about to jump in and took more photos as I swam alongside the boat.
As it turned out, I rather liked the photo. I was in good shape, having lost weight during a hospital stay four months earlier and working out fanatically thereafter. I posted several of the shots on Facebook—a braver act for me than the actual Alcatraz swim. Unfortunately, a friend commented that from my position in the boat, it appeared as though the ‘iako (the wooden boom) extending from the vessel looked like a long appendage jutting from between my legs. Um, ew. And, yes, she had a point. My only swimsuit pic from the twenty-first century had the illusion of being obscene if one wanted to imagine me growing a wooden man-part. I was mortified!
It was a sign. The world would be a better place if I kept my shirt on. Indeed, I successfully swam from Alcatraz in a wetsuit for reasons unrelated to vanity. While a few participants swam in Speedos, the majority wanted more warmth as we navigated the colder waters in the San Francisco Bay. But, yeah, the day of flashing my belly was done. Silver lining: in the years since, I’ve surely saved a fair amount of money on sunscreen. Not enough to afford an extra trip to Stockholm, but surely a few lattes with Oatly from Sweden. Skål!
My partner, Evan, does not have body issues. He can be as self-conscious as any gay man, but it doesn’t get in the way of living life to its fullest. He’s an avid yoga participant, one of those nuts who insists on doing it in studios where they crank up the heat and the men don’t where shirts. Given the temperature setting, the mirrors everywhere, the abnormal stretching—I have zero flexibility or coordination—and the shirtless component, it literally sounds like Hell. He continues to pitch the idea of us doing a class together, but Hell will have to freeze over…or at least turn on the A/C before that ever happens. Even then, not gonna happen. If I attempted the tree pose, it would be “Timber!” after a mere second and the “downward dog” cue would have me glancing at the mats, hoping to spot an off-leash schnauzer. Sadly, I’m a tad rusty with my role in the “shake a paw” routine. Not yoga, but way more Zen.
Being as Evan’s apartment is two blocks from Lake Union in Seattle, we often walk down to have a picnic and watch for the resident beaver who’s as elusive as the Loch Ness Monster when I’m present. During my last couple of visits, we’ve gone swimming. If it were just Evan and strangers who are not my neighbors, taking my shirt off and wading in sloooowly wouldn’t be a big deal. But Evan’s way more social than I am. He invites friends. (The introvert in me thinks, Good god, who does that?! My logical mind butts in with the reply: Um…everyone but you. Damn.)
So I’ve had to appear normal, acting something possibly resembling casual as I lift my shirt over my head, turn away from the friends who are hopefully still distracted by my decoy blurt—“Was that the beaver over there?”—and wade in. STAT! You get used to the cold water once you’re fully submerged, right?
On my latest visit, I met Evan and his friend Ronald down at a dock after I spent the day café-hopping, writing in Seattle’s Fremont and Ballard neighborhoods. I hadn’t packed a swimsuit so I had to borrow one of Evan’s before heading over. The guy is even more of a clothes horse than I am and, as a former Miami resident, he had thirty suits to choose from. Unfortunately, as a former Miami gay, all of them were far skimpier than anything I own. Was this swimwear or fabric samples? Hell was hounding me.
Evan texted: “Where are you?” Then: “Hurry.” No doubt, he knew I was fretting. He knew I was two minutes away from a fashion crisis to eclipse any Milan runway meltdown or that Janet Jackson wardrobe malfunction at the Super Bowl. I slipped on a swimsuit, pulled my shorts over it and headed to the dock, trying to take deep breaths and going over my own calming script: “You do this and you get a double scoop at Salt & Straw.” Neither carrot nor stick will ever motivate me, but Freckled Mint Chocolate Chip has had encouraging results.
The dock was crowded, mostly by thirty-something hipsters proudly exposing body tattoos. (If I’d been inked at that age, my body would be an ode to Ace of Base (central upper back), “No soup for you!” (scrawled upward, right calf) and a double nod to Angela Lansbury, as Jessica Fletcher (right forearm) and Beauty and the Beast’s Mrs. Potts (left ankle).
No tattoos for me. Thank god.
After ten minutes of chitchat, Evan was ready for another dip in the lake. Ronald declined. That meant I could keep Ronald company or shed the shirt and go for a swim. Sometimes being an introvert is a motivator too. If Freckled Mint Chocolate Chip is my carrot, the prospect of continuing a conversation with someone I’m still getting to know is my stick. Shirt off. Hello, lake.
But I was too slow to the plunge. I heard Evan say, “Ronald, will you take our picture?” Some smiles are more forced than others. And prolonged. Ronald suddenly assumed the role of professional photographer.
“Okay, look at each other.”
“Now one gazing out at the water. And another.”
“Come on, James. Smile.”
Not as bad as hot yoga, I told myself. But Hell-adjacent.
At last, it was over. I went with cannonball instead of wading in. Sorry, Ronald. Did I get you wet? “Did the phone get wet? Is it damaged?” No, dammit, it was just fine. Stupid beach towels!
The swim turned out to be great fun. The two of us swam out to a mooring which I ascended, assisted by knotted ropes, something eighteen-year-old me wouldn’t have even tried. Maybe I wanted to show off for my boyfriend. He followed my lead and then came the inevitable quandary: how to get down. It was twist on one of my recurring nightmares where I’m standing on the edge of a high-dive, legs shaking, a crowd watching, a lineup of seven-year-olds waiting on the ladder, encouraging/taunting me with, “Jump!” and “Hurry up, old man!”
Evan called to shore, “Ronald! Take our picture!” In a sleep-time nightmare, you can will your eyes to open and be done with it. I blinked, but nothing changed. This was my comeuppance for showing off. “Let’s jump together,” Evan said. “On three…”
“I’m not ready,” I said while trying to retain my fake smile for the click-happy photographer on shore. Turns out that, as I’ve gotten older, whatever fear of heights I’ve had has gotten worse. I imagined the lake feeling like concrete when I hit it. I thought about my body submerging deep down in a thicket of slimy seaweed with prehistoric looking fish wondering if the mole on my back might be worth a bite. I wondered if one of the wine bottles on the dock might shatter as my scream hit the highest C-note on the way down.
I could have stayed atop that mooring all evening. Eventually, I’d be able to wave down the Coast Guard. Perhaps a sea gull might take perch atop my head. (Snap that, Ronald.)
Evan only had to say “On three” a couple of dozen times. I feared Ronald was getting too many shots, my fake smile long-departed, my body far too exposed. “One, two—”
Down we went. Back to shore. Covered by a towel. (Me, at least.) It was as fine a time it could be, all things considered.
Mercifully, the pics of us on the
lake are distant and blurred. That's
Evan in front, me behind. I swear,
things looked scarier from up there.
Five days later, I allowed myself to remember the occasion. I texted Evan, asking if he could nudge Ronald to send along the photos. I was genuinely curious, gay vanity gaining the edge over body insecurity. It wasn’t long until my phone buzzed in rapid succession. Evan’s one of those who texts each thought separately. Photo after photo arrived on my screen. Aw, my Evan. So handsome. And I dared to glance at the ghostly white figure by his side. I didn’t see fat. I didn’t see anything particularly horrifying. I allowed myself to conclude my body was okay. Trick photography perhaps? I’ll take it. But, no, dear reader, I won’t post it.
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