30 Before 30 Page 2

  “Why does Lena hate me?” I whined at my father as he delicately folded a white linen suit into his suitcase. “I can’t go to the Middle East! It’s dangerous, and even worse: hot!”

  He walked over to a drawer of Speedos and pulled two out. My mom came into the room to run defense. “Не качайся на папе! Он не для этого повесился,” she grumbled while ushering me out. This directly translates to, “Stop swinging on your father, that’s not why he hanged himself!” I heard it a lot as a child.

  “Am I fat?” I asked my mom as she headed downstairs.

  “Yes! But don’t worry, Marina,” she tried to console me, “you are just in your ugly face.” My mom meant to say, “ugly phase,” but it was too difficult for her to pronounce with a Russian accent.

  Mom and I both striking our most flattering poses.

  No matter how much I petitioned to move the wedding somewhere cooler, the location remained in Israel.

  When we got off the plane in Eilat, I noticed something I’d never noticed before: bodies. Half-naked, toned, glistening, adult bodies. These were nothing like the bloated Midwestern bodies I’d grown accustomed to seeing on the edges of Lake Michigan. These were exotic, sea-bodies, sporting G-string bikinis, Speedos, and the kind of lightness that comes with not obsessing over what you look like.

  My confidence had been demolished by the hordes of Russian women buzzing around my teen years. Women who, during holidays, squeezed themselves into a pair of Spanx only to shimmy into their tightest discount T.J. Maxx dress. They looked like sparkly sausages. These women would then wrap themselves in the largest, gaudiest fur coats their husbands could afford. They spent their nights huddled in doorways, chain smoking and complaining about how chubby their daughters were getting. I, of course, was one of those chubby daughters. I’d developed the bad habit of snacking on mayonnaise sandwiches, and it was beginning to show.

  “Ты поправилась!” those same women would exclaim when they saw me, which directly translates to “You’ve gotten better!” This compliment never quite made sense to me, but I accepted it all the same. “Cпасибo!” was my go-to response. I loved being noticed by adults. I loved being noticed.

  Years later I’d learn that while “Ты поправилась” does indeed mean “You’ve gotten better,” it also means “You’ve gotten fatter.” I was blushing and thanking people who were calling me fat.

  I wish I’d seen the Israeli beach bodies as an invitation to embrace my own, but they felt like reminders to stay covered up.

  My sister’s familymoon forced me out of my bulky sweatshirts and into beach attire. Our first morning in Eilat, I stood naked in my parents’ hotel bathroom, avoiding eye contact with the wall-to-wall mirrors. My stomach had grown so rapidly that I had four lightning-bolt-shaped stretchmarks all pointing toward my belly button—ones I still have today.

  My entire family was already at the beach, or as my dad calls it, “the bitch.” Russians take vacation bitch culture very seriously. Starting at six a.m., they race (in hordes) to the hotel’s meticulously aligned plastic lounge chairs—channeling Soviet-era grocery store intensity. They drag said chairs by twos, elbowing other Russians as they go, to the most ideal spots on the beach: next to trees, under umbrellas, near the bar. They line up their spoils and repeat this process until there are enough chairs for the entire family—and some extra because, “You never know who we’ll run into.” To claim a plastic village as one’s own, Russians will take every available towel, including hand and face, from their hotel rooms and drape each one across the lounge chairs they’ve gathered. It creates a terrycloth chain of protection. The towels are then topped with knock-off Gucci sunglasses to finalize the newly erected territory.

  Back in my parents’ bathroom I shoved my tubby body into a bathing suit. The stretchy nylon fabric groaned against my girth. I then took a second bathing suit, with a completely different cut and color, and squeezed myself into that one too. Voilà! Spanx. I sucked in my stomach until my ribs were almost visible. Not so bad, I thought. I searched for a towel to cover myself for the walk to the water, but gave up quickly after realizing they were all at the bitch.

  I scurried to where my entire family, plus gaggles of gorgeous Middle Eastern men, were smoking breakfast cigarettes. My father was the first one to see me. He slid his sunglasses off his face. “Why are you wearing two bathing suits?” he asked. A valid question, considering normal people don’t layer bathing suits. My chest tightened. Busted.

  “Are you saying I’m fat?” I screamed, before jumping into the pool to hide my body. “Are you saying I’m fat?” became my family’s favorite response to any and every question. One that’s still used today.

  My interest in going to a nude beach didn’t come until later in the trip, when I was on a scuba-diving excursion with my uncle, twelve-year-old cousin, and brother-in-law of five minutes. It happened while we were submerged underwater; the boys were off trying to do somersaults while I was screaming into my mask to see if anyone could hear me.

  I noticed that my uncle, cousin, and brother-in-law had stopped goofing around and were mesmerized by something above them. I flipped onto my back, and then I saw it: a topless woman doing the breast stroke through the Red Sea. They were my first stranger-boobs, and they were magnificent. The way they floated in the water, two yolks, converging and diverging. All four of us drifted there staring. It’s a fond family memory, for different reasons, obviously, but still. I decided, right then, that I too wanted to be unapologetically naked like a foreigner. I wanted to have the grace and confidence of this empowered mermaid, to be as self-assured in my own skin as she was in hers. I wanted to peel off my double-layer bathing suit and float through the water, bare chested, without a care in the world.

  Ten years after first spotting this woman, I was in Chile visiting my college friend Ben when the opportunity to get naked at a beach presented itself. Ben, a tall, sometimes serious, usually silly man with six-pack abs and broad shoulders, was my co–resident assistant in college. We were assigned to the floor with all international students and loved our jobs almost as much as we loved hanging out with each other. Because we were RAs our social lives involved little more than resident assistant safety trainings, bulletin boards, and weekly meetings. Most of my college memories are comprised of sitting on Ben’s bed, eating pre-sleep Gardetto’s, watching him do pre-sleep crunches.

  Ben was also the first person to see me do “stand-up.” I made him sit on my bed as I performed stand-up into a hairbrush. I told him jokes until he was on the floor, in a fit of giggles, and then spent two years asking him if he thought I was funny enough to do real stand-up.

  I got into Santiago, Chile, early in the morning and immediately crawled into bed at Ben’s hostel where his Chilean boyfriend, Francisco, slept. Francisco was the most beautiful person I’d seen up close. He looked like an E! host and had four names, each sounding more exotic than the previous one. But he went by Pancho, which is how I will reluctantly be referring to him for the remainder of this story.

  “Hello, I am Pancho, you are nice”—his brow furrowed—“you are nice to—” He looked at Ben for help. Not happening. “You are nice to meet you?” He attempted to correct himself and concluded with, “Ai, fuck it!” Which became our slogan for the trip.

  We spent the Fourth of July in a cabin on a beach called Playa Luna, Chile’s most popular (and only) nude beach. Ben’s friends Jill and Matias tagged along for the trip. Matias was from Chile, while Jill was from the States, which meant they were in the most exciting of relationships: one with an expiration date. It’s a shame too; they clearly loved each other. Their effervescent connection almost made me regret being single, but I quickly remembered how much fun it is to make out with strangers at three a.m.

  That night, in the cabin, we drank hot wine, played cards, and ate hot dogs. The couples would take turns sneaking into corners to kiss, while I talked at whoever was stuck babysitting me.
When I drink, I become a conversational vampire—sucking all the energy out of discussions, growing stronger and louder as I do it. “The thing people don’t understand about Search Engine Optimization…” I droned on until everyone fell asleep, each cuddling their loved one, and one person cuddling her empty family-sized bag of chips.

  In the morning, I woke up to a small tremor, my first. I played it cool by screaming “EARTHQUAKE” and crawling under the nearest table. The outburst got a few grumbles, but no one else woke up. My heart was racing too fast to go back to bed, so I headed out to the balcony. The cold, gray beach was quiet and empty. Too dreary to be peaceful, too foreign to be boring.

  Once everyone was awake and had had enough weak coffee to stave off any potential hangovers, we went for a wander on the beach. We found weird rocks and picked up tiny crabs. We hugged and took photos. I practiced Spanish with Pancho, and he practiced English with me. It was a listless kind of wander. The kind you only get to indulge in when you’re an independent, responsibility-free beta-adult.

  We got to a particularly secluded part of the beach when Jill stopped dead in her tracks, turned to the group, and said, “You wanna do it? You guys want to get naked?”

  A jolt of adrenaline coursed through my chip-and-alcohol-filled body. I pulled Jill aside, “I’m not, um. My situation isn’t taken care of,” I whispered. (This is one of the last times I referred to my pubic hair as my situation. It’s pubic hair on my vagina. Every woman past college-age, nay, past high-school-age, should be able to confidentially refer to her vagina as a “vagina,” or whatever the equivalent is in her native tongue. Situation, Lady Parts, Down There, Hoo-ha—it’s too cutesy. Just this past week, I heard a forty-year-old woman refer to her vagina as her “Suzie.” Stop it.)

  “Uh, yeah … neither is mine,” Jill responded. I’d just assumed that pretty girls always had perfectly manicured pubic areas. Not the dark and tangled web us Russian girls occasionally sport. Jill’s confused response made me realize how stupid my comment was. As if unkempt pubic hair and being naked are mutually exclusive. Can you imagine?

  “So, let’s do it?” Jill repeated.

  I hesitated. Again, I was on a beach, but this time my body was ten years older. The stretchmarks were still there but they had faded from pink to white. Now they curved, like large quotation marks, around my belly button, which made it feel ironic. Yes, I wanted to be the woman with the egg-yolk breasts, swimming through the Red Sea. But I also assumed that there would be more time to build up my confidence, maybe do some crunches before disrobing in public.

  Pancho, who had been planning his wedding to Ben (they broke up a year later), walked over when he noticed I was grappling with something. He took my hands, looked deep into my eyes, and said, “Ai, fuck it?”

  I looked around. I didn’t expect my crowning moment of body clarity would be as the fifth wheel on an empty beach in the middle of a Chilean winter, but I also knew there wouldn’t be many opportunities to get naked in public later on. “Fuck it,” I told the group.

  Matias and Jill cheered, while Ben grew uncharacteristically quiet. “I’m getting over a cold, so I should probably bow out of this one,” he told us. I couldn’t believe it. The only person I knew who was built like a Grecian statue was bowing out of getting naked.

  “But you’re the one who put all of this together,” I said as I waved an upturned palm across the empty water, “You brought us to a nude beach.”

  “Well, I think you guys should definitely get naked. Pancho and I will guard the clothes.” Pancho walked over to some rocks and obediently sat down.

  “What are we? In summer camp? Who’s going to take a hoodie from Target and my saggy underwear?” I snarked. Ben pressed his lips together. I’d seen that look when we were RAs. It was the look he’d get before he’d yell at our residents. Something he hated doing, but was goddamn great at. I backed down. I was a guest, after all. Besides, what kind of decent person strong-arms someone into getting naked against his will? “Okay, you snooze you lose, loser,” I grumbled.

  Ben later admitted that he was feeling a little insecure about an innocuous rash he’d gotten on his upper thighs. See? Even hot people have body issues. It’s a shame though, I would’ve really liked to have seen his penis.

  Jill took off her green long-sleeve shirt, revealing a flat tummy and perfectly sized breasts tucked away in a very cute bra. I suddenly felt trapped in my momentary expression of carefreeness. I didn’t want to get naked with these two conventionally hot and fit people. Matias took off his pants. It started and it wasn’t going to stop. Jill removed her pants. I was trapped. I sighed, turned my back to the group, and began wriggling out of my sweatshirt. I tore off my clothes so quickly, you would’ve thought they were on fire. I didn’t want anyone to see my body bending and jiggling out of all the layers I’d worn. My worst angle is a ninety-degree one. When I’m bent over, my breasts look like udders. So do everyone’s, though.

  The winter air hit my pale skin, and I braced for the stares I assumed would accompany nudity. But instead of looking at my stretchmarks and hair, Matias and Jill ran off hand in hand toward the beach. I looked over to Ben and Pancho, who were playing with the settings on my camera. No one was looking at me. Of course. Of course, nobody was looking at me. Because couples don’t care what your body looks like. Most people don’t.

  “Ben, take a picture,” Jill called over her shoulder. She turned back to Matias and me, “Let’s grab butts!” And so, we grabbed butts.

  Sometimes I think about all those trips to beaches I’d missed out on. I think about how I spent years meticulously shielding my body from any kind of light, air, or touch, and I get sad for my younger self. What a waste of a good and functioning body.

  That day on the freezing beach, with someone else’s buttocks in my hands, I learned to coexist with my body. I even started taking care of it. Nothing fancy: some light exercise, eating decent things, sometimes. Not vacuum sealing myself in leather during the summers. You know, simple stuff. My life improved immensely after that. I had more time to think about other things, easier to control things, like my career.

  As time goes on, our responsibilities increase, our skin becomes less taut, wrinkles creep into the corners of our eyes—and listen, all of that’s great! It’s going to help you get that promotion/respect/footing you want because you’ll look all stately and stuff. It’s not, however, going to make nakedness any easier. Your body will continue to change as you get older—constantly forcing you to get used to the new version.

  That’s why I cannot emphasize this enough: Your twenties are for being naked as much as possible. So please, take off your clothes. Now.

  Playa Luna, Horcón, Chile.

  2

  RIDE BIKE ACROSS BROOKLYN BRIDGE

  There is no better way to greet a city than from the seat of a bike. You become intimately connected to the streets as they vibrate through the rubber wheels, up the metal frame, and into your vagina—or, if you’re a man, your male vagina.

  But it took me a long time to learn the beauty of owning a bike.

  My first bike in New York was a shitty beach cruiser that couldn’t go up hills. I had to get off and push it like a stalled car. In fact, it didn’t take flat surfaces that well either. I was always showing up to places drenched in sweat and smelling of onions.1 “What’s that smell?” I’d say, deflecting attention from that fact that it was my own armpits. I almost immediately got a biking ticket and rarely got through a ride without slamming my shins into the pedals. The cruiser was heavy and awkward, which made me feel heavy and awkward when I was on it. I hated that bike.

  All I wanted was to blissfully ride through the city, maybe even in a dress, like the girls in the yogurt commercials. I wanted to torpedo across the Brooklyn Bridge, with nothing but the East River surrounding me. Plus, bridge bikers are exceptionally cool. Fearless. Unlike the joggers, who are clearly there to show off, or the tourists who are clogging up the flow, bikers have somewhere
to be—so much so that they risk the intactness of their skulls to get there.

  And, my god, did I love that bridge; the squat men selling icy water bottles at each end, how it lights up like a menorah at night, the arches that meet at a point. I used to have this theory that if I had a first-date kiss on the Brooklyn Bridge, I’d most likely marry that person.2 (My understanding of love, at the time, was sophomoric at best.) I spent years luring guys toward the bridge like a slutty siren centering her prey, but something always got in the way—most of the time it was my inability to stop talking.

  I wanted to ride my bike across the bridge because it would symbolize a unique kind of city mastery, a trust between myself and New York. A trust built on knowing the roads, potholes, cracks, and how to ride a damn bike without closing my eyes. As the months went on, it became clear that my beach cruiser was not going to cruise anywhere, especially not over that bridge.

  But I never got rid of that bike because it had been free and I am an immigrant. It’s a cultural taboo, in our community, to throw anything away. “If you can use it, it is to be cherished,” my mother told me while writing “sleeping pills” on an empty bottle of aspirin. Despite the fact that the bike was essentially useless, I still grew attached to it; but that’s probably because of the guy who gave it to me.

  Erez and I met on Fourth Avenue and President Street in Brooklyn. I was grabbing a coffee with my friend Mariam, who was roommates with my most recent ex-boyfriend, Mike.

  Earlier that morning, Mike and I had still been a couple. However, our relationship quickly ended after I drank too much at a work event and locked lips with a greasy magazine editor in the office next door. Because I cannot live with shame, I trudged to Mike’s house first thing in the morning and woke him up with news of my infidelity. Mariam happened to walk into her living room moments after he broke up with me. I stood on their porch, with a plastic bag of my things, and asked Mike for a goodbye hug because I’m a social-etiquette-idiot. He obliged. It was the stingiest, coldest hug to ever take place on that porch, I’m sure of it. The last thing I saw was Mariam mouthing, What the fuck? And then the door shut.