“Oh God, they are coming this way!”

I lunged for my panties, tried to grab my towel at the same time, somehow managed to get both legs tangled in it, and a second later I was already lying face-first in the sand. If anyone had seen the scene from the outside, they would not have seen a confident girl on the beach, but a very frightened seal that had washed ashore.

And just a minute earlier, I had been lying there perfectly calmly, thinking, “Elsa, you did it.”

For the first time in my life, I had dared to stay on the beach completely without a swimsuit. My knees were still trembling a little and my palms were damp, but the sun was touching the parts of my skin where white lines had always remained before.

And then I heard voices from above.

Loud voices.

Very close.

And, as my frightened brain somehow instantly decided, they definitely belonged to people who were about to see me.

I raised my head. Someone really was moving above the beach.

But who were they, and where were they going?

Everything had started much more calmly before that.

I had deliberately chosen a small stretch of shoreline that could only be reached by walking down a path. It was not complete wilderness, but it was quiet enough that I did not feel like a participant in some kind of public experiment.

I arrived wearing an ordinary swimsuit, spread out my towel, and spent about twenty minutes doing the most pointless thing in the world: pretending to read.

I think I reread the same page about seven times.

An argument was taking place inside my head.

“Come on.”

“No.”

“This is why you came here.”

“I can come back another time.”

“And spend another twenty minutes reading the same page?”

That was a strong argument.

I looked around.

A few people were relaxing far away from me, closer to the water.

Nobody cared about me.

I took off my swimsuit top.

For some reason, my heart immediately decided that an emergency was taking place.

Then I took off everything else.

And froze.

My first instinct was to cover myself immediately with my hands. It felt as though even my own shadow was looking at me judgmentally.

But thirty seconds passed.

Then a minute.

Nothing happened.

I sat down on the towel and then lay back. The breeze moved across my skin, the sun warmed my stomach and shoulders, and the sand tickled my feet.

And suddenly I caught myself having an almost childlike thought:

“I am lying here completely naked. It actually happened.”

I smiled.

The sun was touching places that normally never saw it, and the sensation was so unfamiliar that I wanted to laugh. I felt like a butterfly that had somehow, rather absurdly, just escaped from a bikini cocoon.

And that was exactly when those voices appeared.

My wonderful inner state of Zen lasted approximately half a second.

I lunged for my clothes.

My panties were underneath the book.

The book fell.

I reached for the towel.

The towel wrapped itself around my leg.

One step.

Another step.

And then — boom.

Face-first into the sand.

I lay there completely motionless, thinking only one thing: if somebody came over now and asked whether I was all right, I would simply dig a hole and move into it permanently.

Carefully raising my head, I finally saw the source of my panic.

A family was walking along the path above the beach.

They were talking among themselves, carrying beach bags, and not looking down at all.

Nobody had even noticed me.

I looked at my belongings scattered across the sand.

Then I looked at my own legs, completely covered in sand.

And I started laughing.

Quietly at first, and then so hard that my shoulders began shaking.

So much for the irresistible blonde on the beach.

A few minutes later, I brushed the sand off myself, settled back onto my towel, and decided not to get dressed.

And unexpectedly, that decision turned out to be more important than taking my swimsuit off in the first place.

Because now I knew something about myself.

I could get frightened.

I could feel embarrassed.

I could even perform a spectacular face-first dive into the sand.

But none of that meant I had to run away.

I walked toward the water.

The cool water surrounded my feet, then my knees. A wave soaked my hair, and the last traces of tension seemed to dissolve along with the sand on my skin.

When I came back out of the water, I was no longer constantly trying to work out who was looking where.

And that was when I saw them.

An elderly couple was slowly walking right along the water’s edge.

They were holding hands.

Neither of them was wearing any clothes.

For some reason, I kept looking at them.

Not because their bodies were perfect.

Quite the opposite: their age was visible in every line.

But there was not the slightest trace of awkwardness in the way they moved.

The man said something to the woman.

She laughed and gently nudged him with her shoulder.

He took her hand again.

And unexpectedly, something about that scene touched me deeply.

Until then, I had viewed my entire little experiment primarily through myself: how I looked, whether anyone would notice me, whether I was slim enough, whether I was lying in an attractive position.

But those two seemed to have forgotten that spectators even existed.

They were simply there together.

I caught myself thinking that one day I wanted to feel that comfortable too — not necessarily to look twenty forever, but simply to stop fighting with myself.

The older woman noticed me looking at them.

I immediately felt embarrassed.

But she simply smiled at me.

I smiled back.

That was all.

Strangely enough, that brief exchange of glances was what finally made me relax completely.

I spent the rest of the day reading and swimming, and several times I caught myself completely forgetting that I was naked.

And whenever I heard voices on the path again, my heart no longer tried to leap out of my chest.

Before leaving, I took a photograph of my towel, my book, and the mark in the sand left by my first epic fall.

I kept that photograph.

Sometimes I look at it and laugh.

My first day began with the feeling that the entire world was about to stare at me, and ended with the realization that most of the world was not paying any attention to me at all.

But that elderly couple stayed in my memory even more strongly.

I want to go back there.

Not to test my courage again, but because I want to experience that sense of calm that came afterward.

And if there are adult, like-minded people among you who can approach adventures like this with humor and an easygoing attitude, I am always happy to meet new people.

Just one warning in advance: if you suddenly hear voices coming from above, do not throw me a towel.

Towels and I have a complicated relationship.