I am staying a little budget hotel in the middle of Montana, in a hotel that is sold out because it’s graduation day at the University. We’re among the throngs that will be in the audience later today cheering on the accomplishments of the next generation of movers and shakers. I woke up this morning way, way, way before most mortals, and certainly way before the mortal sleeping next to me.
I listened for a while to a book on my MP4 player, then padded down the hallway for the complimentary coffee that tastes just so . . . what, exactly is the taste of coffee in Styrofoam cups? I padded down to the pool, looked in, and there was no one there. Of course there was no one there – it was only 5-something in the morning. I walked over to the hot tub and turned it on. It had a good, high roll, a welcoming hum. I glanced at the rules.
- from swimmingpooldesigns.com
Hot tubs have lots of rules – don’t go in if you’re pregnant, have heart disease, low or high blood pressure; don’t go in if you have a pacemaker; don’t go in if you’re under the age of 14; enter and exit slowly, using the steps; don’t stay in for more than 15 minutes; don’t drink alcoholic beverages; don’t go in alone; no glass containers; leave if you become faint.
I wanted to go in. I’m over 14, my beverage was in a Styrofoam cup, I am not knocked up nor in any medical condition to keep me out. In fact, after an 11-hour car trip yesterday, one might say I’m in a medical condition that requires a good long dose in a hot bubbling cauldron to loosen stiff muscles (and offer a little pre-reward for what is going to be a high-emotion day). But to go in, I’d have to break a rule – I’d be alone. And I didn’t have a swimsuit. I had hastily packed for the trip, and left the swimsuit, forgetting our little budget motel has a 24-hour pool and hot tub. Not really forgetting – more like the kind of quick decision where you assume you never have any time for something like a pool or hot tub, despite the fact once you’re actually near a pool or hot tub, it’s ridiculously easy to fit in a dip. But in the confines of my pool-less/hot-tub-less home, preparing to use them seemed far more labor intensive than the actuality.
I went back to the room, took off my jammies, put my robe back on, grabbed a towel, and headed back to the pool area. I brought a plastic chair around to the edge of the hot tub, so it would serve as a visual barrier. I put my unbreakable, alcohol-free coffee on the edge, disrobed, descended slowly, just like the rules told me to do, and sank in to the hot effervescent water. Naked. I stayed until I was noodle-y and sweating and just shy of overheating. I read and re-read the list of 13 rules posted on the wall, and not one of them said I was supposed to be dressed. It’s such an obvious requirement in a family hotel (there were two enormous yellow inflatable tubes resting quietly in the swimming pool, waiting for the youngsters in the hotel to throw themselves wildly under, though and over them) that apparently it doesn’t need to be stated.
But there I was. Breaking a rule. Three rules, I guess, as I was the only person padding around the hotel in my plush robe this morning – first to the coffee, then to the hot tub, later to get my boarding pass – it’s a floor-length cherry red plush robe, with barely an inch of skin visible, so it’s not like I’m showing a ton of flesh, but the other patrons were in jeans and t-shirts and many already had on their cowboy hats. But not me. I was in full scofflaw mode. Padding around in a contraband bathrobe. Naked and alone in the hot tub. My body was host to foam bubbles; the roiling eddies had full freedom to roam wherever they wanted. It was delicious, an absolutely perfect activity for an unclothed, unencumbered body.
Sneaking naked into the hot tub seemed like the eat-dessert-for-breakfast kind of naughtiness I said I’d try to do more often, although if I’d been busted I’d have been (1) naked and (2) humiliated and (3) possibly banned from the pool/premises and (4) um, naked. I am not naked that many places. Much of my life takes place in clothes. Naked happens at home, behind closed doors, in the shower, occasionally in the back yard if I’m trying to get an against-medical-orders tan. Except for when I’m at the naked-lady-day-spa in town, in which I’m visible to maybe 50 women who are also naked, no one other than one man sees me naked. Not even my gynecologist, who uncovers and covers back up one part at a time. My nakedness is enjoyable or ordinary, yet always sanctioned. I just finished listening to David Sedaris’ essay Naked; he presents perfectly the awkwardness and unusualness of being naked in places we’re usually not, the way it’s not sexual so much as alien to be unclothed in public. Public nakedness – in avant garde performance art, streaking through a sports game, or painted naked bicyclists during Solstice parades – tends to be somewhat repulsive, an oddity, usually not beautiful or erotic. Being fully clothed in public places with a lover’s hand roaming underneath all that clothing – now that’s sexy.
Maybe because I wasn’t in public, but indulging privately, the feeling stayed on the good side of naughty. I’m not sure which felt better – the hot water roiling around my fatigued muscles, or the illicitness of early morning private, discreet nakedness. Either way, accompanied by a cup of Styrofoam coffee, the day is off to a good start.
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