take me to the distant past
It is 6.30pm both at home and where I am, naked in the hotel bathroom on day five of our holiday. The bikini I’ve just taken off lies in the bath behind me, ready to have the chlorine sluiced out by my shower suds.
The mirror over the sink area covers most of the wall. Under unforgiving lights, I’m looking at where I’ve caught the sun despite spending most of my time in deep shade. I was in the pool for no more than 15 minutes and it was the only time I was in direct sun. I didn’t have spf on my shoulders, back or chest which seems just as irresponsible in hindsight as it always does. Why am I surprised that I pink up so easily when it’s been the story of my life?
Something curious happens to me when I’m in a place that’s hotter than home. No matter how diligently I’ve looked after myself in the lead-up or how I continue to make broadly sensible food and drink choices while away, I see at least an extra half a stone round my middle almost instantly. I turn to the side to see what my stomach looks like in profile. I breathe in and up and run my left index finger along the old c-section scar. I don’t want to care or even give brain space to the pouchy bit that sits between it and my belly button but it’s not easy for me to be relaxed about it and then I feel ashamed that it is so hard.
I turn further round to inspect my back and remember other hotel bathroom mirrors on other holidays 20, 25 years or longer ago when, after a day of sunbathing, I’d look at this same body noting the white bits, the red bits. I had no better judgement to act against and neither did my friends, but at least they tanned. Oh, to go back and tell that girl no amount of perseverance with the carrot oil and the low factors would turn her skin golden brown.
One year, in Barcelona, on holiday with the friend who has Italian blood, I developed prickly heat which spread from my stomach to my back, then the tops of my arms and my thighs. Maybe I was close to sunstroke since the abiding memory of our day trip to the unfinished towers of The Sagrada Familia is of nausea, chills.
