Me and my Old Friend El Sol

            Sun worship came naturally to me, tuned as I was to the religious. It made sense to honour the sun, the source of life, without which I could not exist. In fact, the sun fulfills the requirements of deity. Plus, I’ve just always loved to be hot.

Hello sun!

As a girl I used to lie on a blanket in the back, yard, under that hot sun. When gooseflesh rose in late April I would be frustrated at the lack of heat. But in July and August we burned—lying on the flat roof of my dad’s garage, tar literally bubbling around us—as the blisters would the next day.

            And now, nearing fifty, my skin has sun damage. Pre cancer. The backs of my hands, my forearms, forehead, nose and along the ridge of my high cheekbones.

            This effect not from worship—which, technically, I was too hyper to engage in beyond a few hot, boring attempts—but simply from exposure. I could never lie still long enough to tan the insides of my thighs—naturally I envied the long-legged blonde beauty in my grade nine class who was brown all over, at least what I could see of her. To me, she was the most lovely of all of us. I wonder how her skin is now?

            I never did get the all-over tan that the town kids got, where only the skin beneath their bathing suit straps remained white. Mine was called a farmer’s tan. We made fun of it even then. A red neck, skin white where the tee shirt was worn, tanned arms above and below the elbows. Pretty much where I have the actinic keratoses now.

Yup, I was a farmer girl, crawling in the dirt beneath the hot June sun picking strawberries, then climbing cherry trees in the July humidity. August the girl farmers were inside the barn, sorting and packing peaches that had been bathed in carcinogenic Captan (I don’t even want to start thinking about the effects of that) to wash their itchy little fuzz off.

At eight, I had no choice in this matter. And no instruction in the wearing of sun protection, hats, sunglasses, clothing or lotions. Mostly I just wore as little as possible because it was hot in southern Ontario. I grew up in a delta town.

When did we discover that hole in the ozone, anyway? Yup—the 1970s, just when I was a tender young child. When did we start recommending sunscreen? Sunbathing was all the rage when I was a kid. Anybody recall sizzling in baby oil?

Green River cover-up

Peeling long strips of sunburnt skin was a bit of an obsession. We’d do it to each other. The first sunburn I remember being worried about was one sustained in New Zealand in December, 1985. It’s hard to stay out of the sun when you’re on a sailboat being chased by dancing dolphins.

Apres New Zealand there was Australia and then many, many winters in Costa Rica. I never became that lie-in-the-sand-with-nothing-on sun worshipper like some of the touristas I saw, but I did chase the southern heat in northern winter months.

By the 90s I had become somewhat more cautious. I recall wearing a wide-brimmed hat and long pants and sleeves in the high dessert of Utah on my trips along the Green River. I have brilliant memories of each and every one of those adventures. I believe I did shore up my store of Vitamin D (not bad for a northerner), which is rumoured to provide cancer protection in other arenas. Perhaps it’ll all balance itself out in the end.

Sun shadows

Which does come to us all. Sun damage has to be considered a collateral damage of being alive. Chalk it up to living on a solar-dependent planet in the middle of an otherwise cold and dark universe. A girl’s just gotta cozy up to the heat source.