BAE-WATCH



Summer seems to be the one season in which we are made intimately aware of our bodies unlike any other time of the year.  As a son of the South, rising temperatures make the prospect of being layered in anything  other than shorts and a t-shirt foolhardy.  The Sunshine state offers many natural amenities that encourage you to come outside and not only play but beckon you to explore our abundance of lakes, sinkholes and some of the world's most beautiful beaches providing the opportunity for a water wonderland type of escape.  The challenge with the call of the outdoors, especially pools, water parks and large bodies of water is that the requisite garb requires that your "beach body' be on point.

A typical trip to the coast can either be seen as adventurous or angst ridden. My family's recent trip to the beautiful, emerald green water of a nearby coastal hot spot was an epiphany of sorts. Television has always curated what I call the masculine and feminine ideal.  Simply put, the body types highlighted on almost every prime time show, outside of caricatures, are a mixture of imagery drawn from runways, fitness magazines and a lens that rarely if ever captures what the average American now looks like.  Body dysmorphia is rarely a topic associated with men. As my wife and daughters enthusiastically changed into their bathing suits, I politely declined the offer to join them-resisting the powerful childhood affinity I had to swim in any body of water I found myself near.

The parade of humanity that walked up and down the shore line displayed a kind of confidence, a freedom in defiance of Michelangelo's David one comes to expect when any one dares disrobe in public.  Even with the sun bearing down on me like molten lava, and a pair of trunks available in the truck, there was nothing that would compel me to exchange the cool caress of Gulf waters for the slow bake I was enduring on the shore.

I don't know if former elite athletes who in peak condition looked like an anatomy chart now struggle when the cuts and  "dents" as my best friend used to call them seem to have been erased with age and lifestyle changes. This is more than feeling like you have fallen into the category of "dad bod'. What I was battling was more than an awareness of my mortality; it was a recognition that no matter how powerful one might appear to people, my muffin top shrouded any trace Herculean elements that I might be able to identify.

I have often noted that just around the age that the average woman reaches menopause, men of the same age begin to look like they are in their first or second trimester of pregnancy.  I am being transparent not to body shame, but to share how even the most stoic, seemingly confident people wrestle with this whole concept of being fit, Being a permutation of your best self can create enormous internal strife.  What kept me on the shore baking like a California raisin had more to do than me being partially naked and afraid.  Fearful that with each piece of clothing removed, my Kryptonian passport would be revoked and I would be relegated to the zone of mortals bereft of even a silhouette that looked like themselves in their former glory.

The epiphany was simply recognizing that in the confines of that vacationer's paradise, people who were at various stages of undress, nakedness if you will, were carefree.  Free of the enormous weight of soul-withering self criticism and just simply enjoying the incredible natural concourse of sand, ocean air and saltwater.  No pretense, no airs,  It's refreshing how people act when they are no longer bound to the dictates of what is deemed beautiful.