The Nude Life

Yes, our posting rate here at The Nude Life is not what you’d expect from any decent, high-volume blog, but it’s the best we can do under the circumstances. The circumstances, it turns out, are those that have us as busy as can be getting ready to move to a nudist resort in Florida to live full-time in just a very short while now. So while other nudist bloggers have all but given up on their blogs (very understandably so), ours is still here — while we’re busy building The Nude Life full-time.

The countdown has begun to the day we move to Cypress Cove to settle in to our new home, and the 18,000-odd details that it will take to make that happen are underway now. Selling our current home, disconnecting from jobs, clubs and other entanglements with our “past life” are proceeding along, and we are optimistic that this will all be wrapped up in a month or two.

Our nudist friends know of our plans to chuck it all and move to a place where clothes are not needed anytime, anywhere, and I have no doubt at least some of them will take us up on our offer to have them come and visit when they can. Virtually no one else has any idea that we are even moving, let alone moving into a nudist resort, so when/if the day comes when they start asking about our new home, we will be truthful with them but considerate in not trying to shock them with the revelation. We have “nothing to hide,” as it were, with our news of taking up The Nude Life full-time, but neither do we particularly care to share the details of our private life with people who are only casual friends.

Meanwhile, summertime has arrived in Texas and we are back to our routine of simple nudity day and night around the house and pool, as the temperatures and warm breezes make clothing a bother. We’ve had the chore of cleaning and emptying out the house in preparation for putting it up for sale made less onerous by being able to do nearly all the work nude. So although our rate of posting has slowed down, we’re every bit as nude as you’d expect from nudist in Texas in the Spring — we’re nude most of the time!

And indeed this weekend, we will be holding a “nude garage sale,” inviting our nudist friends over to pick and take away the items and furniture we won’t be moving with us to Florida. That’s followed by what might very well be the last-ever nude pool party at our house for those dear nudist friends…the end of a very wonderful 14 years or so of fun fun fun nude parties at our house through the years.

So, dear Reader, excuse the lack of postings for the time being as we work on making our dream come true. The Nude Life Blog will be here, and we promise updates as time allows. Meanwhile, don’t neglect The Nude Life Forum, where you can connect and discuss The Nude Life with others from around the world.

Today’s glorious, brilliant sun, mid-80’s high temperatures and sapphire-blue skies beckoned us out to a local nudist resort for the day, our first of 2008 to enjoy outdoors in wonderful nude freedom and comfort after too long of a chilly and dreary winter.

We enjoyed the company of many of our nudist friends, who were just as eager to be back outdoors and under a warm sun again. It was our club’s first ‘official’ outdoor event of the year, and the weather was absolutely perfect.

Upon arriving in mid-morning and getting out of our clothes, I spent two delightful hours lounging in the morning sun. Others in our party arrived a bit later, and when they did they moderated their time under the sun much more than I did, and so by early afternoon, it was apparent that I had made a typical “nudist noobie” mistake: getting an all-over sunburn. It’s a mild case, but the tenderness is such that putting clothes back on is not at all pleasant, and so off they came again as soon as we got home.

Being a nudist for many years now, I should know better. But the warmth of the sun is so inviting, and the time spent away from such a wonderful feeling made the two hours I laid out seem so brief, that I’m happy to pay the price of a couple of days of tenderness. 

Our dearth of postings over the past few weeks can be explained by a goodly amount of business travel that has kept us away from the blog, but mainly it’s been that we have been very, very busy making all the arrangements to make our move to Cypress Cove near Orlando in a couple of months to start the nude life full-time.

We’ve been getting a real education in Florida’s homeowner’s insurance market (which was ruined by state meddling); in the Florida mortgage lending meltdown as the housing bubble bursts there and elsewhere; and in a couple of dozen other things we’ve had to arrange to make things happen for our new life as full-time nudists living at Cypress Cove.

I’m happy to report that everything is on track, and we have figured out a neat way around the mortgage mess as well as landing some reasonable insurance coverage. We anticipate closing in mid-May, and moving there from our home in Texas soon after, hopefully by June or July.

Now all we have to do in the meantime is quit our jobs, sell our house here, give away or sell 90% of everything inside it, and move. Figuring out what we can fit from our 3,800-sq.ft house into a single 8′ x 8′ x 16′ PODS moving unit is going to be interesting, too!

We know it will be worth it. Our nudist friends here who have asked about our plans are envious of us already, and we can’t help getting excited by the adventure, fun and freedom that will accompany this life-changing shift in location and lifestyle. Breaking the news to our few remaining relatives and friends (all of whom have no idea at all that we are nudists!) will come when it has to: never, if they don’t want to come visit us (which most won’t), and honestly and without shame for those who do.

I’m very glad to have had our guest bloggers Steve and Angie posting some new items during my slowdown in posts, and I hope they have a great time at Haulover Beach this coming week. Let’s hope they post some reports from their visit and perhaps a few vacation snaps as well!

Meanwhile, The Nude Life Forum still has regular visits and posts from nudists all over the world. If you haven’t checked in lately, by all means drop in again soon and let us know what’s on your mind! And, happy Spring Equinox to all those in the Northern Hemisphere! Summer will be here soon!

It wasn’t bad, it was a great time! But we did have to wear clothes…

Angie and I went to Chicago to visit a couple of very good friends. I’ve known him most of my life, her for a long time. Angie has only met them a few times since she met me but has become a part of the ‘family’. Actually, he’s the clergy that married us. For the sake of their privacy let’s call him ‘E’, she ‘MP’.

They aren’t nudists, aren’t interested. Far from prude but not interested. I mean, we were going to go see a cross-dresser revue Friday night but didn’t because I was not feeling well. Not prude folks.

I’d like to think maybe someday, but realistically, it is rare for nudists to convert textiles to the lifestyle. It has to come from within. Now, Angie took the leap from never-having-thought-about-it to a can’t-stand-wearing-clothes-anytime died-in-the-wool nudist in the space of a few minutes. Happens!

In olden days, E and I, plus a lady of mutual acquaintance (his girlfriend, then) shared an apartment and ran around undressed all the time. No biggie. Of course, we were young and life can be quite flexible.

We went our separate ways, aged, and got used to the lives we lived. That’s cool.

Circumstances in my life eventually conspired to allow me to try something I’d been drawn to since, oh, when the doctor first spanked my butt. I was sold. Nudism/naturism is such a part of our lives now that it’s almost a religion. You know how it can be, I’m sure. Like someone who runs 5 miles a day feels deprived if they miss a day. Remember that, E? Yeah.

So, we spent a great weekend with these guys, talked about nudism/naturism a bit, but they’re far from sold. Like E said, “See these Jockey shorts? What difference can 3 ounces of fabric here or not here make?”

All I could say is, try it and if you still can’t tell the difference, don’t try it again.

Ahh, I hate to see those I love so hampered by ideas that have been sold to them by others that don’t have a clue as to what they are teaching. A natural state of being has been turned into an un-natural one.

How is it that someone raised in a conservative Republican family becomes a Democrat later in life? Or vice-versa? Through growth and experience and the willingness to try to understand new ideas, that’s how. It’s a shame that textiles can’t apply those same life-learning lessons to considering that our lifestyle might have some merit. Maybe something for them, maybe not. They’ll die without knowing if they won’t try. That was the position I found myself in, I tried it. It changed my life. I may live a long time, or a short time. Either way, that time is immeasurably better now.

The thing is, I know and love E and MP and are confident that they would love social nudity. They are very intelligent, involved in social issues, reject a lot of the bull which is thrown our way, yet have a blind spot here. Missing out on a new joy in life they could share, because it is so hard to shed the false impressions we have been raised with. They have a link to this site, may check it out, and may learn something that gives them food for thought. Maybe they’ll explore further (probably run across ‘nudist’ sites that are shills for porn) and see that a LOT of folks have something good to say. Those ‘nudist’ porn sites don’t help the image at all. Unfortunately, they get the most exposure (no pun intended) and the most hits. And folks believe that’s what it’s all about, when it couldn’t be further from the truth.

E and MP, I hope you understand what I’m saying here and are not offended. None intended. Thanks for the great weekend, maybe you’ll spend a weekend at the beach with us this summer!

Like John Lennon said, “…maybe someday you will join us…”

- Steve

After being nudists for over a decade, and living the nude life at home and with friends in an active nudist club for all of those years, it seems that one’s perception of what is ‘normal’ takes a dramatic twist.

For example, how many times have you been greeted warmly by a smiling nude woman, with a sincere hug and “air kiss,” the moment after walking into her house? When is the last time you stood inches away from a half-dozen naked folks of all ages, shapes and sizes, yakking away while you yourself and all of them are just as naked as can be, and having a great time with no sense of self-consciousness or discomfort? How much time do you spend sitting among a group of nude folks in a bubbly hot tub, with steam and warm water invigorating a chilly winter night, with no thought at all that anything is the slightest bit out of the ordinary? Have you spent a night playing BINGO at a nudist resort in a room filled with 100 other folks who couldn’t care less what you are or aren’t wearing? Have you stood in front of 1,200 strangers on the stage of a cruise ship, nude, performing in the passenger talent show during a nude cruise — and had a standing ovation?

Each of those situations, and many, many more, are part and parcel of the nude life for us, and have been for a long time. All our best friends are folks we see most often when they have not a stitch on, and we’re just as comfortable and at ease with them and with ourselves when we’re all nude as any other group of good friends would be sitting at a TGI Friday’s fully dressed.

Is this ‘normal?’

Is it sensible / rational / acceptable for adults to accept others as friends / fellow humans in their natural state, without the contrivances and artificiality that textiles confer upon us when we’re dressed?

Those of us who live and love the nude life would argue strongly that it is — if not “normal” in the common sense of the word — that it is something that humans are very adaptable to, and in fact, are more suited toward.

Standing among a group of good friends and discussing matters great and small, nude, is something that is very intoxicating about the nude life. Relaxing in summer’s heat in Nature’s own couture among your fellow skinnydippers, or spending a cool evening in a warm a steamy hot tub with a group of other carefree nudist friends — all of these are experiences that have become second-nature to us after all these years and which we would not like to live without in the future.