November 04, 2006

With a mixture of daring and fear, I threw my legs up in the air on Thursday night so the girls sitting in the front row of the senior art class could draw the intimate space between my legs. Their pencils traced hazy visions of hairy balls and perineum. My body felt exposed and tense in ways I didn’t expect…

The awkwardness of my body surpised me because precisely one year ago I modeled nude in front of the same class. I thought it would be easier the second time around. It wasn’t.

In the space of a year I’ve changed, my body changed. I the other night stood before everyone naked as if for the first time, blood rushing to my heart.

“And how strange, how wonderful it is to be back,” I thought. “And how the body remembers these long moments of silence between poses! And how aware and terrified I suddenly am of every inch of my skin, of every pimple, of every exposed rib and vertebra.”

But the kids were great — they saw me in ways I’ve never saw myself, and drew what they saw with quick, precise movements. They made me blush to see my body on their paper in my hour of nakedness.

Later that night, I took my clothes off in front of Laura and showed her what I looked like through the eyes of strangers.