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Burning Man at the Beach: How “radical self-expression” means taking the radical step of accepting my aging body
In July, Monday is beach day. My partner and I chose Monday because, on weekends, surfers and sunbathers swarm over the sand like ants at a picnic over an uncovered slice of cake. Also, while I’m retired, my partner works 15-hour shifts, Tuesday through Friday. Mondays are his ‘Sunday.’
As you may have inferred, my partner and I are Boomers. What seemed impossible as we lit up joints at Traffic, Jefferson Airplane, or Jethro Tull concerts has come to pass. We are seniors. AARP arrives in our mailbox monthly. Passing a mirror, we wince more often than we smile. Selfies are scary lessons in humility.
“Where did the time go?” I’ll ask.
“Tick, tock,” my partner will reply.
Born in Miami, I’ve amassed mountains of beach days. Most were spent slathered in baby oil. My pals and I also carried “reflectors” — album covers wrapped in aluminum foil to bake ourselves browner. No one worried about aging/wrinkles, much less cancer. All we feared was looking uncool, and “white” was way uncool.
That we wore bikinis goes without saying.
These days, I cover up. I’m not fat, not by a long stretch. People even tell me I don’t look my age. Yet no…
