Dear James: I Love Going Naked on the Beach
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Dear James,
In the second half of last year, I went to a naturist beach for the first time. I was afraid on my whole walk there that I would chicken out. But there was nobody around for miles—so I stripped. Since then, I've done it five more times, at various beaches, with growing confidence, in front of other people who have and have not been clothed. I've found great peace in lying naked on the sand, listening to the waves.
But: Over the winter I started to get these feelings of shame and guilt. I was raised a very strict Catholic. And although my mother has been dead for a decade, I can suddenly feel her strong disapproval from beyond the grave.
It's a conundrum. How would you handle it?
Dear Reader,
Well, I was in church on Sunday morning for the Feast of Pentecost, celebrating the wacky mandate of the Holy Spirit to go where it pleases—to land, if it likes, right on top of somebody's head (your head, my head, anybody's head) and nest there in a throbbing bolus of flame. So yup, I'm ready to get Catholic about this. I'm ready to get dogmatic.
Your body is a gift from God. In the appropriate place (such as a naturist beach), you should be able to go as naked as Adam in the garden and feel not a twinge-let of shame. You should be like the primal newborns in the Doors' 'Waiting for the Sun': 'At first flash of Eden / We raced down to the sea / Standing there on freedom's shore.' (Who dares to say Jim Morrison isn't a great American poet?) Isn't that the true spirit of nudism? They don't call it a birthday suit for nothing. Shed your clothes; shed everything that cramps or abashes you. Air out those musty parts. Unshadow yourself. Let it all flap. Be a real American. Scamper shoeless across the sand into liberty's gold-green sunrise.
Me, I'm not great at being naked. It makes me feel too … naked. So I know where you're coming from. But you've done so well, made such strides in self-development. The confidence, the peace, the waves: Keep going! Of course—as at any breakthrough moment, any evolutionary threshold of the psyche—you're being swarmed by the old demons, now at extra strength: guilt, disgrace, an image of your mother scolding you. They are to be stoutly resisted. Imagine instead your mother's delight in you as a baby, in all your sweet-smelling, roly-poly nudeness. Imagine reality taking pleasure in itself across the surface of your skin. Last word here goes to Gerard Manley Hopkins, great Catholic sensualist, nudist in his heart: 'The Holy Ghost over the bent / World broods with warm breast and with ah! bright wings.'
Safe in my trousers,
James
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'It kind of lit a fire,' Tim said. The couple knew their voices could help keep anyone else from losing their child to a tragedy like this one. 'We've got a little bit of a platform here, and this is a way that we can honor Sam,' Sheri said. 'It's also been very healing for us to feel like we may contribute to preventing disasters like this, saving other lives. That at least helped us make some sense of this whole tragedy.' The NTSB investigation into the crash will continue for about another six months but in the meantime, the couple is going to push to make aviation safer in other ways. Fighting for funding for a new air traffic control system is one of their current goals. Sam comes home Nine days after the crash, Sheri and Tim finally went home to Savannah. American Airlines would later provide an aircraft for their son's final trip home. It was an Airbus plane, because the CRJ regional jet Sam flew wasn't large enough to carry a casket in the cargo hold, Tim said. 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Holding the Army accountable It's been six months since Sam died. Tim and Sheri have been to Capitol Hill six times since the crash for hearings and meetings with lawmakers and have reviewed legislation. Often, they are acknowledged in the audience at the start of committee hearings. They don't plan to stop. On Tuesday, they returned to Capitol Hill to help introduce new aviation safety legislation written by Sen. Cruz and supported by the FAA, NTSB, Department of Transportation and other lawmakers. They'll also be at all three days of NTSB investigative hearings at the end of July in Washington. While they want people to remember their son, they also want accountability. Up until this point, Tim and Sheri feel like they have heard from all parties involved, but not much from the Army. 'I feel betrayed,' Tim said. 'I'll be honest with you.' In July, family members of the victims wrote a letter to the Secretary of the Army calling out the Army's refusal to engage with them. On Tuesday, after a private update from the NTSB, the families met with the Army. 'The most disappointing part from the Army's perspective is the reaction to it,' Tim said. 'They've taken the position to hide behind the NTSB and say, 'We can't really do anything or say anything until the final report.' That's just crazy.' While a probable cause of the crash has yet to be determined by the NTSB, the couple does believe the crew aboard the Army Black Hawk were at fault. 'While I do say that they made some mistakes and caused the accident, I'm not going to hold that in my heart, I have to let that go,' Tim said. The couple also reached out to the parents of crew chief Ryan O'Hara, who was in the helicopter on a training mission that fateful night. 'Our hearts really broke for them,' Sheri said, noting O'Hara was Sam's age and had a child. 'They didn't get that support like we got. Social media rallied around us.' To this day, Sheri said, six or seven of the victims of the crash haven't been publicly identified. There's a Flight 5342 Slack channel that shares birthdays and anniversaries of their loved ones. Sheri said May was a hard month full of celebrations that never happened. 'As a pilot, you bear this responsibility to get people safely where they're supposed to go,' Tim said. 'They expected them to get there and they were almost there. It's just heartbreaking.' A life together cut short October 4 will still be celebrated between Tim, Sheri, and Lydia. Plans haven't been finalized, but they know they'll take a trip somewhere to memorialize Sam and what would have been the day he and Lydia were married. Sam met Lydia at a church camp when they were 14 and were really close friends, but she was dating a friend of his at the time. Over the years, they reconnected. About two and a half years ago, on St. Patrick's Day, Sam 'accidentally' introduced his parents to Lydia, after engaging in holiday 'liquid celebrations,' Sheri said laughing. Very quickly, Tim and Sheri saw exactly what their son saw in Lydia. 'She has so much emotional maturity, she really brought out the best in him,' Sheri said. 'They brought out the best in each other.' Last October, just east of Dublin, Ireland, Sam got down on one knee with an emerald ring in hand and asked Lydia to be his wife. In July, Tim, Sheri and Lydia went to Ireland and she showed them where Sam proposed. That spot felt sacred to Sheri – where Sam felt one of the most joyful moments of his life. The three also sat down at a seafood tapas restaurant Sam and Lydia had gone to after she said 'yes.' When their server put their food down, Sheri noticed an airplane tattoo on the server's arm. 'My eyes just filled with tears,' Sherri said. It's those little moments that let them know whether on Capitol Hill, at home in Savanah or deep in Ireland, Sam will be with them forever. Solve the daily Crossword
