Naked or Nekkid?

I think it was Lewis Grizzard who made the distinction between naked and nekkid. Naked simply meant that you didn't have on any clothes. Nekkid meant you didn't have on any clothes and you're up to something.

I bring this up because we're headed to the south of France on Wednesday and are trying to prepare Maddie for the fact that people will appear there in various stages of dress and undress and that it's okay to think it's kind of funny, but it's no okay to point and stare.

She's had a little bit of an intro at our town pool. Although only little kids go without swimsuits, it's not uncommon to see someone change on the lawn next to the pool--even though there is a long row of changing rooms right behind them.

When you're from country founded by Puritans, it's hard to get into the European mindset of not being very concerned with showing your body. Women in their seventies and eighties sport bikinis. Men wear speedo-type briefs rather than swim trunks. Your weight does not in any way inhibit your choice of swimwear. Normally every summer I look for one of those suck-me-in swimsuits designed by the people at NASA--guaranteed to take off 10 pounds. You can't get those here because nobody feels the need to suck anything in. There's even a very limited selection of cover-ups, because again, there's really no need to cover up.

We're told by friends that the town of Frejus where we are going in France is absolutely beautiful. I can't believe that Maddie Lentz has seen more of the world in the last year than most people see in a lifetime. And that she's been exposed to more cultures than most people are in a lifetime. How many American six-year-olds (or American sixty-year-olds) realize that being Japanese and being Korean are very different indeed. And now she's going to learn that not everyone feels the need to wear a top at the beach!