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Nothing to Fear, but Fear Itself

12/26/2014

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Before Fred offered me the job at Paradise, I had never been to a nudist resort and except for my roommate who had visited Paradise for the first time a week earlier, I had never known anyone who had been to one. It’s not like I had lived a sheltered life, but besides naked night swimming at the beach, my only experience with public nudity was when my dad took me to the steam room at the YMCA. I can still remember fantasizing on the long drive from California to Florida of how I was going to be surrounded by naked bathing beauties fanning me with palm fronds and feeding me peeled grapes one at a time.

When I finally arrived at the front gate around 3 am, I was given the key to my efficiency and directions to my unit. I truly had no realistic idea of what I had gotten myself into. The next morning, I awoke to the sound of someone knocking on my sliding glass door. When I opened the door, there stood my ex roommate in all her naked glory. Although we had never been romantically involved, I’d had the pleasure of this experience on several occasions. However, this was the first time in the middle of a parking lot. “Ready for your tour?”, she exclaimed with a big smile. To which I replied, “youbetcha”. We jumped on her golf cart and off we went. Everything was going along just swell until we pulled up alongside my first naked couple out for a stroll. Karen stopped the cart and said, “I’d like you to meet my friends Paul and Charlotte”. The couple appeared to be in their late seventies and their bodies reflected the gravitational effects of a long life well lived. We exchanged pleasantries and I made sure to maintain eye contact at all times. I will admit that over the years, I have entertained many strange fantasies centered around nudity, but I’m pretty sure none of them involved seeing my grandparents naked. As we continued along, we rolled by naked people riding bicycles, jogging, playing tennis and even roller skating. I started noticing a trend and my next revelation came as we pulled up to the volleyball courts. It seems that the vast majority of men that choose to live the nudist lifestyle are also somewhat well-endowed by their maker. Prior to this tour, I had always considered myself to be a man of pretty much average equipment size, but when these guys would dive for the ball, they would leave quite an impressive divot in the sand. Let’s just say that these were not the same dudes that hung out at the Y. After the tour was over, Karen dropped me off at my place and that’s when the fear began to set in. That all too familiar voice inside my head kept repeating some limiting beliefs that I wasn’t even consciously aware that I possessed. I began to spin myself up into such a panic that for at least the first month I was there, I found myself going to work and immediately returning to my unit and locking myself inside. I ordered my meals to be delivered from Hungry Howies and wouldn’t even venture outside the resort unless I absolutely had to. It wasn’t until I started dating a beautiful bartender named Valerie and she introduced me to the joys of an after shift dip in the hot tub, that the fear subsided. Paul and Charlotte ended up becoming some of my closest friends and by the time I left Paradise, if you were to ask me if the person I had just finished having a thirty minute conversation with was wearing clothes, I honestly couldn’t tell you. The fact is that all of us hear those voices in our head from time to time and the trick is to realize that most of the time those thoughts are just not true.

It’s either that or get yourself a hot girlfriend Dude.

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    About Wali,
    The Grateful Dude

    In my formative years, I was lucky enough to attend an amazing high school modeled after the freedom school from the Billie Jack films. The curriculum included outdoor education, pottery and organic farming and emphasized values like creativity, self awareness and a strong sense of community. I spent several summers traveling from show to show with The Grateful Dead and found that not only could I beat the crap out of a plastic bucket in a drum circle, I was also quite the imported beer salesman. My early career started off in the eighties driving limousine for posers, drug dealers and wannabe rock stars in Los Angeles. In the late eighties, I was introduced to the former owner of Paradise Lakes Nudist Resort who had just seduced and proposed to my roommate while she was on vacation in Florida. Fred took me aside one afternoon  and told me, “I like you, kid and since I’m taking your roommate and I’m pretty sure you can’t afford this beach rental on your own, why not come on out to Florida? I’ll find you a place to stay, give you a job and you’ll be surrounded by naked women”. So I loaded up my truck and moved to Paradise. Lakes, that is. Swimmin’ pools. Porno stars. (insert banjo solo here).

    I wake up every morning (well almost every morning) knowing that today is a wonderful gift to be unwrapped and explored. I believe that every day is filled with limitless possibilities and endless abundance. I’m convinced that our true purpose in life is to interact with our fellow beings and give witness to this amazing universe that surrounds us.

    If you are searching for miracles in life, you need go no farther than your backyard to realize that we are living in the midst of the greatest miracle of all.

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