Emma had spent thirty-seven years learning to hate her body.
“I cried the first three times,” Delia said cheerfully. “Now I teach water aerobics. You’ll get there.” Purenudism Junior Miss Nudist Beauty Pageant
And that was more than enough.
“Absolutely not,” she said, wiping her chin. Emma had spent thirty-seven years learning to hate her body
On Saturday night, there was a drum circle and a potluck. Emma wore a sarong around her waist—optional, Leo explained, but it was getting chilly—and brought a quinoa salad she’d learned to make during her divorce. She talked to a retired firefighter who had a prosthetic leg and a tattoo of a dragon wrapped around his remaining calf. She talked to a nurse who said naturism had saved her from an eating disorder. She talked to a shy teenager who was there with his parents, learning that his gangly, acne-marked body was not a crime. You’ll get there
“You don’t have to love your body today,” Delia said. “Just try not to hate it. Try neutrality. The love might follow.”
A woman named Delia, seventy-two, with a crooked spine and laugh lines like river deltas, sat down beside her. “First time?”