stripping down

I recently booked a weekend getaway to Breitenbush hot springs near Detroit, Oregon. The woman on the phone asked me if I had ever been a guest before, I said no, I had not. I heard her shuffle some papers and imagined she might have shifted in her seat, to make herself more comfortable as she began a ten minute introduction of what to expect when we arrive. I had a pretty good idea of what she was going to tell me, so I sat back and paid casual attention to her words. She spent about one minute on the concept of a swimsuit optional community. "Most people do not wear swimsuits here, but we encourage you to do what makes you most comfortable while you are visiting". She then moved on to the list of what items to bring, what to leave behind, what is available and what is not. There is no cell service within miles and miles of Breitenbush. No wifi, internet, no electrical appliances are permitted. If a coffee pot is plugged in the entire electrical system might be thrown off track. Really? Leave your perfumes, scented lotions, glass containers, camping stoves, booze, cigarettes and drugs behind. It seemed to me that the lack of clothing was not as shocking as perhaps the lack of technology, stimulants, Internet service and cellular capabilities. I started thinking about nakedness. Removing complications from our lives. Stripping down. Someone recently said to me, my life is so complicated. I just want simplicity. What complicates our lives? What hassles and frustrates us? How do we move beyond complications into simplicity? As the woman on the phone kept talking about the hot springs community I pictured a woman, tall, curvy, dressed in a long skirt, black pumps on her feet, tight blouse, billowy scarf hanging over her neck, all much too formal for this place. Her hair is freshly brushed, pinned and fastened on her head. As she gets out of her car, one of her high heels falls off into the dirt. She does not reach for it. The other leg extends out and is planted firmly on the ground. With a quick jerk of her leg the other shoe drops to the ground. One by one, articles of clothing are peeled away, shimmied down thighs, stepped out of, slid over shoulders, then arms, and hands. Layers peeled and discarded on the ground leaving a fabric trail from car to water. She is finished with clothing. Now she unplugs the wires extending from her ears to her music. Drops the whole contraption into the grass. Takes a cell phone from her purse and places it on a rock near the path she walks. Leaves the purse near the stream which runs toward the hot pools. One by one she removes the rings from her fingers tugging, pulling them off. They fall haphazardly into small holes likely dug by rodents. A wrist watch lies face down near a tree trunk. With one last shift, she tilts her head to the right and gently slaps her left as if to remove any water from her ear canal. With a slow shake of her head from side to side, the remainder of the television show she watched last night falls from her ears to the ground like water droplets, both small and large combine to form a small pool beneath her legs. Gone, cleaned out. With a deep satisfying exhale she exhumes the argument she had with her lover that morning and watches as it escapes her body by way of her mouth like a steamy cloud of precipitation. Stripped. Down. She briefly glances back at the trail of clothing, the thin wires of her technology tangled like eagerly removed lingerie and moves ahead.