Paula stood in the changing room (there were no walls, just a curtain of beads) for eleven minutes. She peeled off her linen pants. Then her organic cotton top. Then—deep breath—the matching underwear she’d bought specifically because “someone might see it.”

The founder, a woman named Sage with silver dreadlocks and the posture of a redwood tree, greeted her at the welcome yurt. “Ah,” Sage said, looking at Paula’s anxiety like it was a familiar houseplant. “Newborn.”

Turning 39 at the Holy Nature Nudists: A Birthday Suit Birthday Story (Part 1)

The drive took three hours. The last mile was a dirt path lined with ferns so tall they scraped the side of her Subaru. Paula, ever the over-packer, had brought three suitcases for a weekend. She didn’t know yet that she wouldn’t need a single zipper.