Naked in the Netherlands

The pool is as magnificent as I remember it, surrounded by large windows that flood the room with light. We are the first to arrive so the expansive grounds are empty—no one in any direction. I descend into the water; it’s the perfect temperature. After my first half is in, I push off the stairs. Reflexively my head goes under, and my butt drifts up, skimming the surface. How wonderful this feels without a swimsuit. I give a kick to get my whole body under. When I enter water I want to be completely submerged.

The design is hyper-modern, and what I like about this pool is that one corner narrows into a path that flows into the next room. The light fades into a glossy charcoal as you float into a soft, dark cave. Between these two rooms is a cut-out in the wall, a passage through to the outside. I go under and emerge into the fresh air, sunshine hitting all my skin at once.

I love swimming naked. Diving into the water unrestricted by fabric is a special freedom, and today there will be no end of it. I’ll be sticky in a sauna, use the lake as my cold plunge, and swim next to the ducklings who weave through the reeds. I’m at my favorite spa, maybe in the world, which happens to be a ten-minute drive from my inlaws’ house in Utrecht.

Through a window, I see a hulk of a man hair-flipping his jet-black tresses while scrubbing down his tan chiseled body piled high with tattoos. He certainly stands out in this sea of pale, blond bodies. He disappears and reappears in the next window continuing to scrub with force. No wait, is it him? There are muscles, tan, and tattoos, but a shaved head. It’s eerie. Are there two of them? A beefcake power couple?

Yes, there are two. They exit the building striding confidently across the lawn, in lockstep, each mirroring the other’s dominating presence. Upon closer inspection, which today means something different than most, I realize they are brothers. Twins? Identical twins? Among the mess of ink, “Live your Life” is uniformly branded on both of their right arms.

Seeing them pushes me out of my comfort zone. Is it that they’re brothers frolicking naked together or is it their whole vibe in general? Maybe it’s the twin factor. I spot a second pair of identical twins reclining on the sun loungers. Women, in their sixties, their silver hair in matching bobs. What’s it like to have matching haircuts with your twin sister in your sixties? It’s surreal to be twenty minutes in with two sets of twins.

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Of the twelve saunas on the grounds, the largest, “Sauna Theater” has an event at the top of each hour. Before noon a line forms, and we hop in. Standing there, a sour look comes across Michiel’s face. I know this look; he gets it when Dutch people do something extra Dutch that annoys him. I whisper, asking him what’s the matter. The man at the head of the line is complaining while using many words that amount to nothing, two of the biggest Dutch transgressions in Michiel’s eyes. I am unaware of the entire exchange because I can’t understand anything. All the conversations around me blur into the background. Blissful ignorance means extra zen for me.

Michiel can’t translate the event titles for me. Dutch words, yet unfamiliar to him. For once we are both in the dark. The iconography tells me it’s a “two bucket” out of three which means a hot sauna, how hot I’m not sure. The host, the one person wearing clothes, a spa-branded t-shirt, and a terrycloth wrap skirt, enters the sea of forty-ish naked bodies and welcomes us with an announcement: with each level of seating you go up, the temperature increases by fifteen degrees. Michiel goes to the top, and I stay at the first level. My calculus: when you might not understand everything happening in a fiery room, it’s best to have a clear exit, not one blocked with slippery naked bodies. I put my towel down next to the altar-like structure filled with hot stones that take up almost half the room. As the host artfully presents a snowball of ice with eucalyptus oil, then crushes it into the hot rocks, a couple rushes in late and decides to squeeze into the few spare inches between me and the person next to me.

We are as close to touching as you can be, without touching.

I’m immediately anxious and uncomfortable. The music begins to swell and the host takes out an oversized wooden fan and starts dancing. He slowly paces across the room pushing the hot air towards us. I look down at my forearm and thigh, each pore has opened. As he comes towards me, his clog nearly nicks my toes. Abruptly he turns and twirls the fan, startling me. It misses my nose by an inch.

Instinctively I fold my body in, trying to give him more space but baking in this oven, with sweat dripping into my eyes, my mild claustrophobia flips on. I give up and bolt outside. I walk over to the lake but the women surrounding the stairs don’t move. Standing there, desperately wanting to cool off, I suddenly remember. I have my own shortlist of Dutch transgressions. The first offender is the mildly irritating undercurrent I couldn’t place today until now. Spatial proximity. This culture reliably refuses to make space. Half the jacuzzi can be empty, but a stranger will elect to sit next to you. Foolishly, I’m surprised none of this changes, even if everyone removes their clothes.

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On the naked spectrum, I score high [for an American]. I’m an emphatic “yes” for skinny dipping, and I’ll happily strip at Korean Spas with my girlfriends, but I haven’t visited a nudist resort, yet. I’d say that puts me at an 8 out of 10. However, now that I’m familiar with the mixed-gender, zero-personal-space Dutch approach, I’m quickly descending the international scale.

I didn’t know about the naked spectrum, until my London semester abroad in 1999. For spring break a friend suggested Istanbul, Turkey. When our Rough Guide described the elaborate bathing rituals in the historic hammams around the city, we knew we had to try one. On our walk over, my friend and I discussed what we might be getting into,

Will we be naked together? Yes, I think so.

Is that ok with you? Yes.

You? [nervous laugh]

I have my period. How’s that gonna work? Ugh, I have no idea.

Does someone actually “bathe” us?

Someone did indeed bathe us. Sprawled out on a stone platform, I still picture her enormous breasts swinging toward my face, sometimes smacking it, with each vigorous movement of her hand scrubbing me. Afterward, it was clear the local women we shared the space with were confused by both my tampon string and the sight of our “groomed” middle sections. These details, plus our pixie haircuts and tan lines made us aliens to them. But growing up in Florida’s bikini wax beach culture, I was equally shocked at their full bush. Awkward pantomimes back and forth led to a room filled with laughter. Despite endless differences, here we all were. Women bathing together, gossiping with our girlfriends, and caring for ourselves. Nudity is the great equalizer.

While Turkish culture is exceptionally welcoming, we were limited to experiencing it through our interactions in markets and shops, with men. I only saw momentarily flashes of women, passing between buildings or closing a door. This bath was our singular interaction with them. Their insular world had remained mysterious until we entered this, their private space.

Being naked requires vulnerability, and connecting to these women through it, rather than through language, was worth all the red-faced blunders it cost me, and more. This day added significant context to my view of Turkey. I’m thankful for this particular glimpse into their secret, closed world, which frankly, wouldn’t have been possible clothed.

This first experience of communal bathing grew into a lifelong fascination with spas and water rituals of different cultures. The excruciating comedy of errors which occurs when you are at your most vulnerable, naked, while not being able to read instructions or ask questions, is a challenge I’ve inexplicably been drawn to. The transformation of my skin after soaking and being scrubbed raw paired with the intense relaxation from the alternating of hot to cold, was a high I’d keep chasing.

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Conceptually mixed-gender dressing rooms make perfect sense to me, yet it’s still difficult for me to enter one in the Netherlands. All my years of conditioning don’t disappear overnight. Knowing I can’t read signs, and that I’ll be misinterpreting movements and tone results in a constant hum of anxiety, along with hypervigilance. I’m always looking for reassurance through context clues. Yesterday, at the public pool, I walked the aisles of lockers until I visually clocked both men and women; only then did I stop, draw a curtain, and put on my swimsuit. I gotta “make sure” I’m not disrobing in the wrong place. I aspire to relax into the embarrassment of my inevitable mistakes, but embracing failure is frustrating. I don’t want to be an outsider forever.

I would posit there’s a hierarchy of locations ripe with humiliating opportunities when you are traveling internationally. It begins with restaurants and escalates to pharmacies, bathrooms, and hospitals, but spas are at the top. It’s the ultimate cultural pressure cooker. All of them mix language barriers with unfamiliar customs, but adding in the nudity downright guarantees awkwardness of epic proportions. The stakes are far greater than calling for a reservation at an impossible-to-get-into restaurant in Milan, because, well, you aren’t standing naked in front of the maître d’ while mangling the sentence you’ve rehearsed over and over in your terrible Italian.

When traveling, you’re assigned the role of cultural spectator, watching from a distance. Experiences happen to you. But at the bath in Istanbul, something altogether different happened. I’d call it cultural intimacy. I moved from observer to participant, and that caused a shift around me. I wasn’t alone in my curiosity and vulnerability, it was mutually present in the room, creating a connection between all of us. I may have learned more about their culture in those few hours than during most of the trip.

Clothes are artifacts, able to signal many things: opinions, identity, freedom, and lifestyle. Removing them removes a layer between you and the culture you’re visiting. With less distraction and barriers the deeper-set differences between you are magnified. Long ago I decided the lack of personal space in the Netherlands was maddening, and my need for space was reasonable. It took the heightened frustration of feeling it naked before I began to examine it. What does it mean to sit closer together? What am I doing with the space I claim to require?

To my surprise, my opinion is starting to sway. While I concentrated on how little space I was given, I missed how much the Dutch do with so little space. They respect it in a way Americans aren’t capable of with their sprawling suburbs and McMansions. While I hate getting mowed down in the train station or a cyclist flying past me with an inch to spare, I appreciate how much intentionality and design go into every square millimeter of space. The Netherlands is beautiful, on the whole, but also in finer details. There's no other place like it.

After years of traveling, cultural intimacy has become my goal. I want to experience a society’s values more often as a participant than an observer. Shedding my clothes unwittingly fast-tracked me into it, helping me discover it was possible in the first place. But there are other paths ahead to uncover, perhaps this time with my clothes on.

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Today is a perfect summer day in Utrecht

It’s been a minute. I’ve had a tough few months where to my surprise, my writing stopped. I’m starting to unpack the emotional rollercoaster I’ve been on, but that will take time, so I’m returning with something *lighter* today. Thankfully this Sunday I’ll be back on the road, launching into another trip full of new places, and inspiration. It will begin in Vlorë, Albania.

In the meantime, I’ve been resting up at my inlaws’. I’ve only seen a summer in the Netherlands once, five years ago. That’s a shame because summer is pure magic here. I’ve been biking along the canals, into the forests and grasslands, and exploring further afield in the city. I found a 50-meter pool to do my laps. Michiel’s dad has been cooking up incredible dinners, that we eat on the balcony every night. Life is good.