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Comfortable in Our Skin

There I was, crawling across the floor like a panther, a tiger or, okay, maybe more like a stiff house cat working on her sixth or seventh life. After an hour-long warm-up of salsa dance, our instructor had switched into erotic mode and though I tried hard to connect with my sensual side, I was having a hard time finding it. I kept thinking about how bruised my knees would be by the end of the day. I glanced over at the other students, including some pillars of Seattle society. If they could ‘get down,’ I guess I could too.

The dance class was just one of the workshops offered last fall at IslandWood’s Circle of Friends retreat weekend. As we began, moving slowly to the music, sliding our hands down over our hips, trying on various come-hither looks, a fair amount of embarrassed laughter filled the room. “You’ve got to be kidding me,” I heard one woman mutter. But she kept at it. And we couldn’t have had any better inspiration than our instructor for casting off our self-consciousness the way one might shed so many inhibiting outer garments. A longtime dance and fitness teacher on Bainbridge Island, and a survivor of ovarian cancer, she moved fluidly, sensually, completely comfortable in and with her body.

And gradually, the room filled with a different kind of laughter: the laughter of women letting go, forgetting about worries and to-do lists and all the stuff that normally competes for our attention. We were just there, in that room, in our bodies … and having a blast.

If this kind of class sounds good to you (although you may want to pack knee pads in your gym bag), you’re looking for other ways to bring out your sensual self, or maybe you’d just like to be more at ease in your body, check out Eileen Nicol’s article, The Awakening, in this issue. From exotic dance and other classes to titillating reads and shopping for sex toys, she presents a variety of ways to rekindle your erotic fires. In these complex and troubled times, it may take some coaxing to get us to walk on the wild side. But once we’re there...

Happy Valentine’s Day!

Karen Reed-Matthee
Editor and Co-founder

©February 2009 Caliope Publishing Company