T-minus 10 and counting…

In ten days I head to Miami and in as many days I will be on the sand at Haulover Beach. From what I can ascertain it’s one of the top 10 nude beaches in the world and I’m to the point where I am practically counting the hours.

Now every nude beach that I’ve been to has a different feel; San Onofre is relaxed and mellow and if you break away from the small legal area, you can walk the shores of the Pacific immediately under Camp Pendleton for miles in the early morning without encountering another sole. Baker Beach is cool, breezy and not for those with any reservations about being seen; unmarked in it’s legal status and with a stellar view of the Golden Gate Bridge, you can be 1 of 5 nudists swarmed by hundreds of unknowing and unsuspecting tourists and if you‘ve got issues with being in the public view this might not be the beach for you. Sandy Hook is a free-for-all for East Coasters and tourists, and with a far view of New York City it produces a throng that may either embrace you or simply look through you, depending on how they feel that day.

I’m anxious about Haulover for two reasons; First, it is always interesting to step foot onto a new beach and gauge the ambiance, the vibe that the beach and its inhabitants produce. Secondly (in my opinion) this beach is possibly the most publicly visible beach, overlooked by some of Florida’s most expensive and coveted high-rise real estate.

Now the second part intrigues me more - as a nudist which feels our access to public lands is unduly limited and that nudity should never be considered nasty or illegal, I have no issue with the thought of being seen by any of Miami’s clothed elite while naked, or being surrounded by those visitors experiencing the much, much larger textile portion of Haulover. But, even with legal status it must be a little like being on display and for someone who has a little bit of a penchant for being naked where he shouldn’t be, I’m very much ok with this.

Nude beaches fulfill so much for so many of us; A place to feel the warmth of the sun and an ocean breeze on your body, a place to feel unencumbered and a place to see and be with others like us - to nod your head to the others that have to live like me, fully clothed when we’d prefer not to be. Being naked is so important to me that I don’t know if I could ever take a vacation where it wasn’t part of the itinerary; couple this with the support of nude organizations which keep me apprised of our status and assist in allowing us to be counted and I feel that I’m doing my small part.

So my hope is to take my laptop and provide a 10-day view of Haulover. I’m bringing carry-on luggage because when you visit a nude beach, you only need be concerned with adequate clothing to get to and from the beach and maybe be prepared for a dinner or two - I think I can get the trusty computer in there as well. So I’ve told myself to document the days activities so they can be remembered. I hope to talk about the feel of the beach and the people I meet and my impression of naked Miami, maybe even see if there’s anyplace else to drop my trousers, because as a man wanting more to do naked it’s always fun to push the envelope.

I’ll bring my camera too.

Now if anyone in Miami reads this and is at Haulover when I lay out my towel, say hi when you see me there…

Throwing my naked self up on the internet

So here I am ready to make my first post to my very own inconsequential blog and it seems to me that there's a need for a definition of exactly who I am and what I stand for, what I want, what I need, and what I want to accomplish with all of this. Although a blog's standard definition (to me at least) is a series of electronic ramblings that need not be linked by a common thread, it seems to me that most of what I have to say is relative to a couple of topics that have become close to my heart as I travel down the road of life - I might add that at my age more of this road could be considered behind me and less in front, and maybe this little public view of me is my attempt to make amends with myself in regards to the person that I wanted to be yet never was before now.

Maybe this is my attempt to be who I want to be. I think that if you present yourself in this medium you can either lie and be someone totally new and different (the person you want to be) or you can become the person you profess yourself to be when you have those little conversations with yourself during the quiet times at night (the person you should be)…

So, if I were to start placing tags on me should someone want 4-5 words to delineate who I am and whether any of these makes me worth investigating, then these would be the ones:

NudistQueerLonerAgnosticQuasi-Liberal

These items are most important to because:

As a nudist I am not able to live my life as I see fit and this is a predominant issue in my life because there are so many obstructions in my wanting to live that way. I think that the human body (and I mean every body) is beautiful, something to be celebrated and that nakedness is nothing to be ashamed of. This is a huge part of who I am and what I believe - I feel that if I should want to go to the store naked I should be able to do so without any ramifications and since I consider nude activism a plausible way to work towards these rights, I assumed that I should be open about this. I only reference my orientation (not preference but orientation) because it does NOT dominate my life. I do not segregate myself from those who have a different orientation or gravitate towards only those people which share the same orientation; I mention my being gay only because I want to be open in the event that someone should query this or feel that knowing my sexuality is a prerequisite before navigating up and down the pages of my little corner of the web. I am a loner and I try to determine why I isolate myself on a daily basis - my hope I that in some way this electronic "exposure" may have some answers for me and allow be to be a more social person, although I believe I have buried myself into a corner because I have not been totally comfortable with announcing that I was a gay, naked, agnostic, quasi-liberal before today. Religion (or lack thereof) is an intrinsic segment of many peoples lives - I acknowledge, possibly even envy, people who have found their god or their beliefs and live by their sacraments trying make this world a better place; I cannot condone people who have found their god and believe me to be a lesser person for not having the same god or persons who feel that all others must have the same god as well or be condemned to an eternal hell complete with fire and brimstone. I do believe that if there is a god that this god would be joy and love and acceptance and caring and compassion and understanding and if your god isn't like this I really don't think I want to get to know him. I say that I am a quasi-liberal only because I am tired of the need to define myself as fitting into any one of the many political parties. I believe many things that fit into one or more of these pre-defined political buckets and I am sure that as this blog progresses many of these ideologies will float to the surface solely for the benefit of me being able to preach from my new electronic soapbox...