Tits Out

Permission to go for it.

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Photo by Thierry Meier on Unsplash

My husband thinks swimming in salt water is weird and gross. He’s a lake guy. 

When I swim in lakes, I have this unnerving feeling that leeches have crawled inside all my holes. I imagine parasites and brain-eating creatures nesting behind my eyes. Tiny bugs float around eating things I don’t feel like I should be swimming in. When the water goes up my nose, it stings and I’m instantly agitated.  

Ocean is Mother Nature’s neti pot. 

Swimming in the ocean is medicinal for me. Cold dips through the winter are a staple for many islanders here. I’m too wussy for that, but I’m building my resilience. 

I ocean dip once or twice in the winter, but in my imaginings, my future self, with her curly greying locks and wrinkling spotted arms, she goes in every day, swears by it. Keeps her sharp, blood moving, lungs pulsing.  

Summer swimming though. It’s therapy, play, prayer and deep communion. Feeling the layers of tide swirl about in pockets of warmth and cold are like friendships, comforting and awakening. It’s usually a little colder than I like. Takes me a while to get in while my children chide me. The little one tries to splash me while I snap “I swear if you do that again, I’m not getting in this water!” 

I’m no fun mom at the water’s edge. But once we’re in, I’m dolphin mom. I’m crocodile mom, get on my back, I’ll swim you anywhere. I’ve never regretted an ocean swim, I leave feeling like I’ve had a blood transfusion from sparkling angels. 

My cousin, Amy, loves an ocean dip. When she lived with us, I was far more brave in the shoulder season, egged on by this committed friend and her rip-off-the-bandaid dives.

Amy just visited for a few days and we took our dogs to the beach early in the morning, planning for a swim. I suited up and brought a towel. She walked down, boldly, in shorts and a T, with no swimsuit, no towel, not even a bra. 

I love a skinny dip. I love how water swirls in places where elastic usually holds tight as guards. I love how I feel like I’m getting away with something. A mermaid, fleeing the male gaze. Baptismal in the womb of the goddess. Floating like a witch. 

Amy also loves a skinny dip. Or a tits out dip and such was the plan, no suit, no bra and all. But after our rock sitting and deep breathing and dog playing, gazes turning towards the swim ahead, a woman walked out onto our empty beach. An intruder on our quiet miracle.  

The moment of deliberation was short, but it was there. Should she still swim, tits out, in full view of this stranger? Yes, yes she would. If this stranger has a problem with boobs she can go post about it in the contentious Facebook Group. We’re mermaids. We’re free. 

My dog is a weirdo and likes to herd people in the water, so we’re swimming and splashing, and taking turns calling him so he doesn’t claw us. Honestly, it’s a bit stressful, but he loves it. I love him loving it. We’re consumed by dog swim, then tired out, walking out of the ocean, tenuous as the rocks eat our feet.

And there is the woman. The stranger, tits out, wading into the ocean.

“I wasn’t going to do it,” she says, “but then I saw you.”

And that, my friends, is why we mustn’t back away from shining. It’s why we mustn’t hold back on giving ourselves fully and joyfully to the life we long to live. We mustn’t hide who we are, what we want and what we have to give when the fear of judgment nips at us. We mustn’t all cower around, hiding ourselves in a herd of the status quo. 

Living tits out might just give others permission to do the same.