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My mother's memories
I was living in the south of Spain for a year and my mother came for a visit. We rented a car and drove to a lovely beach where the people sat under colorful umbrellas to protect themselves from the sun and “el Levante”, the summer winds that blow through Cadiz from May to August. Many of the women and young girls were topless, sitting with their families or playing in the water with their friends in a completely natural manner, a custom so different from my own in Mexico. We sat on our towels for a bit to admire the ocean and people-watch, and I couldn´t help feeling awed by the fact that I was at that very moment on the last tip of Europe and its Western ways.
We got up, leaving our shoes and towels on the sand and started walking along the waters edge for what felt like miles, stopping only to eat at a “chringuito”, and continuing the trek inadvertently through a nudist zone which is kept quite separate from the family area where we had left our things. There weren´t many nude people there, and I tried not to look at them so I could blend in with the locals, though I´m not sure how well that worked while wearing a one piece bathing suit. But I know I was surprised at the ease with which these people of all ages and sizes could bare all and feel no shame. Who are these people who can do that? Who am I that I can´t?
I guess there are different shades of Western Ways.
