Nakedness

Today I was brave

I tethered the racing of my heart

And decided to be a parent

Today, I bared every acre of my skin

Allowing strangers to see what I spent most of my life trying to hide

I made a decision

A decision for my daughters

Watching my two shameless girls nakedly shower off the chlorine from our neighborhood pool

A thought occurred to me

They could see me

See me clothed, curled into the corners of the public shower

Hoping that no eyes would judge my skin

My body

Strong

Thick

Marked by bingeing and birthing

By generations of conservative blasphemy

Of modesty and propriety

And a color that can't decide which parent to follow

I looked down

And saw my children and knew I was frozen in a defining moment

The slap of my swimsuit as I removed it was the only thing I could hear above the buzzing in my ears

Fight or flight

Teeth clenched I washed my hair

My greatest secret visible to the women and children in the locker room

Rinse and dry and dress and swallow hard

My head swiveled to see who bore witness

It wasn't my children

They were busy being free

In fact no one made eye contact

But

There were other mothers removing their clothes

One woman who had been futilely showering with a T-shirt and shorts had removed them

Another by the lockers, trying to hold a towel around herself with her chin as she dressed her own child, slipped free of her bonds

A third

A forth

It was as if I'd unwittingly started a revolution

An accidental protest

Was this movement a coincidence?

Did it matter?

There are questions to be asked

Why?

Why until that moment did a room full of grown women find it necessary to cover their bodies

What?

What was so wrong with the natural female body that it was uncomfortable to expose it for convenience sake?

When?

At what age were we taught that our fleshly forms were bad and should be covered for our sakes and the comfort of those around us?

Who?

Who made this decision?

Was it our parents?

Our religions?

The people in our lives we trusted with our unadorned bodies?

Who?

Both of my hands were full of trusting toddler grips as we left the pool

Forming a chain of girl

One thought forming in my mind as we walked away

Please God, don't let me be their "who"