I'm the Fat, Naked Lady at the Y

I'm the Fat, Naked Lady at the Y

When I was a kid, going to swim practice at the Montgomery Aquatic Center, there was a fat, naked lady, who seemed to be naked for much longer than was necessary in the locker room. She was old (of course, thirty seemed old to me then), saggy, and the parts of her that were supposed to have hair seemed to have more hair than I was told about in health class. And that hair was creeping up into areas that weren’t supposed to have hair, like her lower abdomen. 

There were a lot of folds and a lot of hair and this lady would do so many things in the locker room, all while being completely naked. 

She would shower, of course, and then she would towel off. There was a very complete lotion regiment. Maybe she had some water to drink. A small, post-swim snack. I thought, “Eating a granola bar! While naked!?!” You would think for the next stage of moving around the locker room she’d drape a towel around her--at least around the lower half, but no! She hung the towel up! She was done with it!

Maybe then she’d shuffle to the hair dryers with a comb and stand under the dryers for a very long time. Still naked. With her hair dry, it seemed the next stage was returning to her locker to gather what, to my eyes, was a 19th century apothecary set of elixirs, toners and mists. Good god, I’d think, how old is she? Was this Where do those unlabeled jars and bottles even come from? 

Armed with her goops, she’d return to the mirror and begin a long sequence of preparing her face for a life after the pool. Still naked. Sometimes as I stared at her in my exhausted daze, I’d think, “She forgot to get dressed! She’s so old, she doesn’t even remember she needs clothes in public.” I could not understand how she could move about a locker room full of strangers so completely oblivious to the fact that all of her body was exposed. And her body was not one to be spectacularly proud of. It was not the shower scene in Sixteen Candles. It was not any shower scene, come to think of it. No woman with that body could be naked on camera for that long without it being a documentary about German nudist colony. 

But still, her nudity persisted! After her potions had been applied, a unique olfactory blend of jasmine, Shalomar and Ben Gay permeated the locker room. The lady would return to her locker and with several deep breaths commence to getting dressed. 

I would watch all of this in my wet bathing suit as I tried to finagle a way to get undressed without anyone seeing any part of me. As any former preteen person knows, there are straps you can slide together, pull your head through, hold a towel over you like it’s a Spartan shield, step your leg and arm through, and voila! You’ve dislocated your shoulder and slipped and fallen on the wet tile, all so no one could see that you had not one, but two developing breasts.

But the saggy naked lady didn’t hurt herself getting changed. She took her time. Instead of pre-hooking her bra and trying to force it over her head like a shirt, causing a painful pinching and bubbling of breast tissue, she calmly and slowly put one arm through the bra straps at a time. And then her shirt. All while her lower half was still naked! She even put a blazer on top of that shirt--with her very hairy vagina still completely exposed! What if there had been a fire? What if she’d had to run out like that? I was flummoxed. My repertoire was to try to get as much dressing done under my towel as possible, pull the bra over my head, quickly turn around and throw a giant sweatshirt over my whole being, so as to erase the idea that I might have a sexual organ, or even legs from anyone’s minds. This had to be done quickly. There was no lingering, no lotion to hydrate the chlorine-addled skin. It was a get-in-and-get-out scenario. It was like a Mossad rescue. 

Recently, it occurred to me that I am now the fat, naked lady at the Y. I don’t particularly like to work out, but I like returning to my responsibilities even less, so yes, I linger in the locker room. Not in a creepy way, but in an elixir, potions and snacks kind of way. Let’s draw this out as long as possible. Let’s daydream about how I probably dropped one full size in that workout I just did. I mean, it was a pretty hard workout. Sure, I left halfway through it, claiming I was lightheaded, but that first part was very demanding. I will probably be sore tomorrow. Maybe some Ben Gay would help? I’ll have to pick some up. 

It’s funny that I got most comfortable with my body when it’s at its least firm. When everything’s hanging out, and things are not waxed, and it’s a general, atrophied, free-for-all. Sometimes I look at my body in the mirror and I say, “Pretty good! I mean, you just had a baby.” (8 years ago I had my last kid). But it’s all how you frame it, right? Branding!

Dry my hair naked? Why not! Realize I need to blow my nose, but the tissues are all the way across the room? No problem! I can cross the room without clothes on! I can do it! 

I used to think the naked lady at the swim center was gross. But now I really respect her. I hold her up like a feminist icon. My suburban Gloria Steinem, if you will. And sure, the younger women and girls in the locker room might look at me with disgust and think, “Ugh, I will never let myself go like that,” but they’re wrong. They will let themselves go. I want to tell them, “Your whole life can’t be six packs and thigh gaps! Where’s the fun there?”

And by the way, you never see those people lingering naked in the locker room. You never see the pilates instructor leaning naked against her locker room eating an apple. She doesn’t linger. The hot people of the world are ironically not secure enough in their hotness to linger naked in the locker room at the Y. It’s us, the naked fatties standing under the wall-mounted hand dryers that have all the confidence. I’m sure of it.