Navy blue and nylon, they are sewn together along the inner recesses of invisible thighs. At the apex, at the center of the crotch, fine threading has twice before been sewn. Begging yet another go at it with a needle, a dime-sized hole slowly pulls the fabric apart. The tenuous opening casually flirts as fingers gingerly probe the six-year old piece of clothing. Young hands gracefully glide over fading material while a mind conjures up images of past travels and nostalgic tribulations.
A bottom hem falls just above vertically challenged knees. An elastic waistband is stretched beyond recognition, retaining the contour of a voluptuous shape once worn like a scarlet letter. These days a plastic, blue button, with the emblem of two women sitting back to back, and a Velcro fly, struggle to keep the shorts up. A white and black label at the back reads “XL.” Random stains, a yellow dot on the rear, left thigh, pay tribute to the life of a struggling artist. Stitching is coming loose along numerous lines. On the right butt cheek, the cloth was once torn and then stitched back together using royal blue thread. What remains is an L-shape, which is also pulling apart at the seams.
Washed into the layers of silky fabric, the sweat of a time now past. Ground into the highly resistant textile, the dirt and soil from spills taken and adventures pursued. Today, even after having purchased the infamous pair of shorts from a department store in a suburban neighborhood of Lake Geneva, six summers ago, I don the gym-like garb and I wear it with a mix of pride and melancholy.
A bumbling twenty-four year old, I worked as a camp counselor for an American company based out of Switzerland. The first six weeks of my sojourn had been spent on an amazing landscape. Living in a tent and sleeping on a cot, I was privy to the southern, rolling hills of France’s wine region. I spent weeks underneath a canopy of limestone caves while learning how to perfect the j-stroke as I attempted to guide Canadian canoes down the river Ardèche.
Meals were spent out of doors. Media and mirrors were few and far between. On nights off, I would drink red wine by the glass full, oft times alone and sitting beside an ambling river. From the get-go, I did not know how to canoe even though it was my job to lead children on such an excursion. My peers, like-minded college aged folk with a penchant for both travel and experiential education, all but rejected me. I was certainly tolerated, just not accepted. The feeling made for an uncomfortable first few weeks yet somehow, as painful as this was to my ego, I was galvanized and invigorated. While the others were entranced by videos and television during their meager time off, I was out of doors, teaching myself to juggle, picking up the guitar again, or riding a bike up undulating, narrow roads and over to the singular nudist colony on the river’s banks.
I found solace in strolling along country roads and over to neighboring village castle ruins. Once, while returning home from such a journey, night had fallen and a strange grunting sound began emanating from the dense bush to my right. Initially humored by what I mistakenly thought were humans, I employed a singing voice after my laughter had dissipated and fear was quick to replace it. Pleading with whatever large creature was foraging nearby, I sang that I was just a harmless human out for an evening stroll. The tune soothed my panic and I high-tailed it over to a play structure where I found refuge up off of the ground. With my composure regained, I quickly walked back the few remaining steps to camp.
Weeks later, while in the office of a photographer who captured our descents down a specific rapid along our canoeing route, I gazed at framed photographs that lined a wall. In a few of them, large, waist high, feral pigs were fording the river. Finally, I had discovered the source of my earlier cause for concern.
As summer approached the riverbed began to recede, and along with it the judgment of my peers was also giving way. I had proven myself. While the majority of the male staff would help beach the canoes and carry all of the gear up the hill, only then to prepare their own campsite for the night and rest for a period of time, I along with a few other women, continued to prepare the campsite and meals, and then play with and keep the children occupied until night had fallen, stars were overhead, and we all fell into an exhaustive heap on our sleeping bags. Not to mention, my paddling skills had improved 100%. I was, at last, accepted.
With my acceptance, came less alone time. I joined the crowd, in drinking red wine by the river, in rock diving, and in skinny-dipping. One day, I even borrowed the camp cook’s moped and attempted to ride it over to Vallon-Pont d’ Arc, the nearest commercial village. Desiring to show off after first sitting upon the vehicle, I accidentally rode into a wooden beam adjacent to the camp’s recreation room. I then cruised the two-wheeler over to town. On my way back, I somehow, again, pressed on the accelerator, instead of the brake, causing the bike to rear up, and my rear end to fall off of the seat. Humorously, I tore a hole in the back of the orange pair of name brand board shorts that I had recently purchased. With borrowed thread, I had to sew up the mistake prior to the next week’s canoe trip.
At the spring season’s conclusion, I spent the following week traversing the Heidi-like mountainsides of Andorra, a principality that lies between France and Spain. Supple, rolling hills; rushing white water streams; wildflowers of every shape and hue; wild horses grazing in verdant meadows; slanting, scree slopes; towering granite peaks, - the Pyrenees has it all. Like a Billy goat, I leaped and jumped from one stone hut to another. (A series of 25 huts, or stone refugis as they are called, dot the Andorran countryside. These shelters are free of charge and well tended to.) For days on end, I swam in chilly, fresh water streams and I sunbathed on snow-patched mountaintops, attempting to make snow angels in the evaporating, white matter.
Again traveling alone, I was greeted by numerous other trekkers including hunters, hikers, and even a few rogue revelers. I had arrived into Andorra late on an inauspicious evening, not knowing a soul, and bedded down behind a sandy rock formation in the back of what appeared to be an empty ski chalet. My trip had included the stashing away of cumbersome clothes, on the hillside and in a hut, and the escapade of making friends with four Belgian men who had backpacked in cans of red bull and a bottle of vodka, marijuana in numerous forms, and mushrooms and ecstasy. During my last night there, I had a gentle make-out session with a Catalonian boy who could not have been more than twenty. I awoke only a few short hours later to ask him the time (which was a difficult task, for he spoke little English and I did not speak Catalan whatsoever). After realizing that it was 5:30am, I jumped up with anxiety. I had a mere hour and a half to run down the mountain and make the bus that would carry me back to France and, eventually, on to Switzerland.
With only minutes to spare, I bounded down and onto the main thoroughfare just a few short blocks away from the bus stop. After boarding, I fell into a seat with relief and quickly dozed off. Seemingly only minutes later, I was awoken with a start. A French policeman was shaking me awake, inquiring as to whether or not he could check my purse, which I had haphazardly tossed into the seat to my right. Immediately, I knew that an action from the night before, of moving a small metal pipe and a remaining tiny nugget of hash that I had on my person, stashed in a front pocket of a Mt. Hardware fleece jacket, and into the dainty bag I wore around my shoulders, was a mistake. “Pipa,” the man cried out. “Le pipa,” he alerted his co-workers. I sank down further into my seat, as they ransacked my bag. I was escorted off of the bus, while the driver patiently turned the engine off, and into the back of a marked police van. A minor strip search was conducted. (I had to take my shoes and socks off, and they searched my larger backpack for more paraphernalia or illegal substances.)
With my passport noted, a fine paid (50 French francs, I believe it was), the pipe and hashish confiscated and, essentially, a slap of the hand, I was loaded back onto the bus to continue along my journey. I refused (and, still to this day, refuse) to be ashamed of my enjoyment for smoking marijuana. However, I was a little embarrassed for slowing down the other passengers’ and the bus driver’s morning commutes. Nonetheless, I had a new job, and another foreign destination, to get to. Thus, again, I and we were off.
The excursion was marked with continued mishaps and stories in the making but I eventually arrived to the Auberge, a small hotel, bar, and restaurant that would serve as “home” for the next month and a half, located in a suburban village town just due east of Lake Geneva (or Geneve, as the locals call it. Also, the lake there is, actually, called Lac Leman.) The newest set of employees, fresh off the boat from their teaching stints and other day jobs in primarily the States and Canada, were already gathered and mingling. They were excited by the journey that they were embarking upon. Meanwhile, I was physically exhausted from being smack dab in the middle of my own exploits. I retreated early, to the comforts of my own bed in a room that I shared with three others, to write and contemplate. This behavior remained consistent throughout our short time together.
The day-to-day of summer camp life quickly came to emulate a pattern that I had only been too eager to escape. Monday through Friday, at 8:30am, we were to be outside and ready to hop on a short bus for the quick ride to the Chataigneriaz (the school grounds where our summer camp was held). Usually, I skipped the bus ride and walked up the hill along fields of sunflowers and lines of grapevines. Over Monday morning breakfast, which was comprised of cereal, yogurt, or bread with jam and Nutella, talk usually centered around the weekend just had, - a quick trip to Italy; our group celebration of the Swiss independence day; or the time spent partying down in the streets of Geneve. By Wednesday, conversation had already lapsed into what the up and coming time off had in store. The monotony quickly wearied my being, and I was acutely and sensitively aware that my life had segued from living in close commune with the land to a life further removed from it.
I began to question myself and whether or not what I was doing was of meaning. As the sole gymnastics coach, I ran the ‘Gymnasie de Cara’ with a solid hand. Managing all of the hundred plus children as they moved around the apparatus, from the floor, to the beams, to the mini-tramp, I was simultaneously coaching my peers on how to spot while trying to learn a few French verbs. The depth of the experience was cemented when, one night, while languishing around the Auberge, I decided to take a bicycle that a co-worker had found (deposited along the side of the road, it had been headed for a landfill), for a dusk lit ride. I rode east along the curvaceous, lake road and towards the nearest large town, Nyon.
In Nyon, ancient Roman columns are crumbling on an overlooking hill. At night, these relics of a civilization past are lit like beacons, brightly displaying the opulence of western thought. I rode around, enchanted by the sights my eyes were consuming while my thoughts danced merrily in stony daydreams. I headed towards the commercial district, where cars were forbidden, and I continued to steer in the direction of a sign that read “Do Not Enter” for I was a bicyclist and a privileged American who had the right of way (no matter what). A woman’s deep gasp alerted me to my folly.
I went flying, head first, over my handlebars, while my womanly thighs slammed into the gearshifts. I had attempted to ride between two cement pillars, across which an eight-foot long, black chain link was suspended. My training, from a lifetime spent in gymnastics, dance and other movement classes, kicked in and I instinctively tucked my chin to my chest. I performed a dive roll, jumping up at the tail end of it with my hands in the air. “Ces’t bon,” I exclaimed. “C’est bon,” (“I am good”) I tried to assure the on-lookers whose jaws were agape as they stood staring at the stunt. I picked up the bicycle, hopped back on it, and rode back home while the adrenaline pumped its way through my body, and my heart beat out a loud, rhythmic “holy fuck.”
The following day, while recounting the tale with my comrades, I had deep, purple bruises in the middle of each thigh. Corporeal reminders that what I was actively teaching to the kids, day in and day out, was a skill that could one day save their very real human lives, - just as it had mine on that very memorable occasion.
In the time that has since passed, the navy blue, nylon shorts have continued to play an integral role in my life. As a graduate student, they accompanied me to my first residency at Goddard College, in Plainfield, Vermont. While rubbing elbows with artists of every craft and medium, I fled from the typically scheduled cabaret, an evening of live music, dance, and theatre, performed in a refurbished hundred plus year old barn, for a quick respite. Under a warm August sky, I climbed the metal roof of a greenhouse. While careening back down, the shorts caught on a metal bracket, thereby ripping and puncturing my behind. With my ass partially visible, I wandered back into the event and proceeded to get my groove on as our local hip-hop artist and beat boxer spun the records (or, er, pressed buttons on his computer’s keypad).
Weeks later, after having returned home to San Diego, I was again out in public in these same shorts. Still torn, and still refusing to wear underwear underneath, I gallivanted on a Pacific beach with a dear playmate who was quickly becoming more than just a friend. We tossed a Frisbee disc to and fro, I in the torn shorts while also wearing a tank top, without a bra, that read, “Put the Fun Between Your Legs” (it had an image of a bicycle drawn in between the wording). Meanwhile, he had taken off his jeans and was running around catching the disc and flinging it back at me in nothing more than boxer shorts (which, he initially realized, he had forgotten to button). Indeed, we were a sight for sore eyes.
When we tired, we began to play in the sand, - creating sculptures out of found materials and objects. Bent at the waist, I was not afraid to raise my head and offer a “Hello” to the lifeguards as they drove by in their jeep. We capped our lovely afternoon off together by enjoying a meal of sushi at a local restaurant. Still parading in the fading shorts, I moved around with a little bit more apprehension as I ambled in and out of a black, leather booth.
That was two years ago. Today, the shorts hang from a 31 year-old waist. They hardly stay up, yet I cannot bring myself to part with them. My partner, the same man from the story above whom I now live with, scoffs whenever he sees me in them. Still, as old and failing as they are, they represent more than just an item used to cover up shameful body parts. The thinning remnant is a hint at a body embodied, - it is a historical artifact of lived experience. Stories are woven into the very makeup of the precious fabric. Parting with them would be like turning the last page on the chapter of my twenties and I guess, well, I guess that I am not quite ready to do that yet.
