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Monday, April 13, 2015

The Daily Chai Leaves Her Comfort Zone

Today's Chai was a delicious, frothy concoction with Oprah's name on it. My philanthropic duties for the day are complete because 24¢ went to some charity when I bought that drink. I'm being sarcastic, just FYI.

Some months ago, a photographer friend of mine mentioned he'd like to shoot me sometime after I commented on his beautiful work. Since he does a lot of nude photography, I turned beet red and wished the floor would open up right there and eat me alive. I laughed instead, "Yeah, sure, hahaha." We talked a little further about it later though and he assured me he was more interested in portraits than any of the more racy work he had posted on Facebook...photos that speak to the beauty of the female body but get censored and reported because they are considered too unsavoury for Facebook. I personally love his work because it celebrates the female form, the muscles, the curves, the bone structure, all beautifully captured in the most stunning ways. Here's his website just for shits and giggles: www.robertfarnham.com

I'm in no way interested in modelling nude, but our society's view of the naked body is ridiculous. When Kate was three, I'd just returned from Germany where nakedness and public nakedness is much more acceptable and it was not uncommon to see girls of seven or eight swimming at the pool topless. There is a time and a place for everything, even in Germany, so it wasn't like it was acceptable to go for dinner without a shirt, but in the open air, in the sun, why not? After I returned to Canada, I took Kate to a local lake and went for a swim, but when we were done swimming, I realized I'd forgotten a change of clothes for her as we'd arrived at the lake in our bathing suits. So what was I to do when her swimsuit was wet and she was getting chilled? I took it off and let her run around naked, of course, she was three! Oh my, the looks I got from other parents were scathing. I could read their minds, quite clearly, How dare you let her run around NAKED, shame on you! For the next hour, I resolutely let her play naked until she was ready to go, but I'd never felt so judged in my entire parenting career as I continued to get glares and stares from the other parents.

All that being said, however, I'm not that comfortable in my own skin. I tend to like how I look fully clothed much better than when I'm naked! Seeing as Rob just wanted to do portraits though, I thought, what the hell, it'll be fun and I had a nice invitation to dinner to look forward to afterwards.

Well....I'm in no way a graceful or elegant person. I arrived at his warehouse space, sweaty and nervous and not really sure what to do with my arms. We chatted away (yes, mostly me) and I did eventually feel at ease and I hope Rob got what he was looking for, we shall see! I think what I liked best was that I did something out of my comfort zone. You may not believe this, but I don't like being the centre of attention, I'd much rather be the class clown in the back of the class, muttering funny comments from the peanut gallery. To have one person concentrating on me, setting up shots of me, made me wildly uncomfortable. I never did figure out what to do with my hands or my arms. Kind of like when I'm dancing. Maybe I should have had a drink in one hand and ciggy in the other! Anyway, I'm glad Rob is a friend and is fully aware of my lack of modelling skills.

Afterwards, I had a delightful meal with Rob, Rachel and their daughter who is an absolutely delicious morsel of human being. She, like my girls, loves to be tickled and even asked me to read her a bedtime story. Both Rob and Rachel said I didn't have to do any of those parental things because I was off-duty, but I was happy to do it for such a charming little person.

So there you have it, I did something that made me wildly uncomfortable and I didn't die or turn to stone. Maybe next I will try....I don't know, any suggestions?

I bought this bottle of wine because I liked the label and it was called Bodacious. I thought it was called Bodilicious and given my penchant for adding "licious" to my friend's names, I thought it was a fitting purchase. I'm quite disappointed to realize it called Bodacious, which is just not the same. Granted, it's an actual real word, but made up words are so much more fun.

PS I don't normally name my friends in this blog, but since I'm plugging his website, it's really no secret :P However, their daughter's name will remain a deep, dark mystery!

2 comments:

David tz said...

Not a big fan of your current theme. It allows you to choose the layout, but it never remembers the layout you chose. It always defaults back to 'magazine' layout. I've got this bookmarked, and read daily as soon as it turns up in my twitter feed.I want to read the entire post, not a snippet and then have to click to read the rest... Just saying. Otherwise, good to see you step out of your comfort zone and try new things regardless of the consequences. The results can be encouraging or discouraging, but always eye-opening and leading to even more new things. 2 thumbs up.

The Daily Chai said...

I like that you have to click on it to read it, I can keep track of my hits better that way ;) But I'm glad you read my blog every day! And thanks for sharing it on your blog :)