Here Comes the Sun

Summer made an impetuous appearance here in Oregon last week. One day it was chilly and rainy and I was wearing my trademark skuzzy sweater. The next day it was in the 90s. I hung up my skuzzy sweater with a “See ya in the fall!” finality, threw on my favorite purple tank top and opened up all the windows. It was hard to stay focused on work, and the impulse to step out on our deck and bask in the sun tugged at my brain.

Good thing I was working on a story about the evils of tanning. “Teens Unaffected by ‘Healthy Tan’ Debate” reminded me of myself. Regardless of skin cancer warnings and admonitions that they’ll end up looking like leather handbags, teens continue to tan in record numbers. Why? For the same reason I did way back in the 1980s: because I thought it made me look better.

“Sun worshipper” does not begin to describe my romance with the almighty sun. Growing up in the snow belt of upstate New York, I pined for intense UV exposure all winter long. After being cooped up in a cold, drafty house for five months, nothing could warm me so thoroughly as the sun. It seemed to heat the frozen marrow in my bones. It energized me, and made me feel as though I could emerge from hibernation, triumphant once more.

The first temperate, relatively mild, sun-dappled days of early spring found me pulling my lawn chair from the barn. Snow banks lurked in the shadows along the sides of the house and under trees, but that didn’t stop me from finding the sunniest spot on the soggy lawn and baring my winter bleached skin. This was just a warm-up.

Memorial Day weekend was a good bet for laying down the base tan. Or base burn, I should say. I’m very fair and always burn before tanning. This I viewed as a mere annoyance, a small challenge to be overcome. With enough persistence and dedication, I could weather the burn.

And weather it I did. I suffered more sunburns than I can count. Sunburns that left me in bed for days, slathered with Noxema (for it’s cooling and moisturizing effect), blisters popping up on my shoulders and forehead (and once, even my eyelids), headaches, nausea and chills that made it impossible to do anything but lie there in misery.

Eventually the burn would fade and my skin would peel—first big sheets of it, dwindling to smaller and smaller bits and flakes. You’d think one ordeal like this would send a girl to the drug store for sunscreen with SPF 50 gagamillion.

Not me. Because once the pain was gone and the peeling had stopped, I was brown underneath. Just as a snake or a crab molts its old skin, I would shed the old winter version of myself to reveal a brand new and revitalized version—in my mind, a brown and attractive version.

I loved that a dark tan made my blue eyes appear bluer. That a tan made me look and feel thinner. That it cleared up my bad teenager skin. I even remember telling my mom, at the age of 14, that I loved how no one could tell that I was blushing when I had a tan (being an overly shy girl, one who was easily embarrassed and scandalized at the slightest provocation, this was a true saving grace).

During summer vacations in high school, I was a professional tanner. I never had summer jobs, so tanning was my job. Good thing I graduated and went to college and started working after that. Sure, I would still tan here and there, but time restrictions were a major stumbling block. It’s hard to get a “deep, dark, savage tan” when you work in an office all day.

Then I started noticing some freckles on my face that I hadn’t had as a child. After traveling in Latin America for six months, my best friend growing up (being her characteristically blunt self) was quick to point out that I had “even more” sun damage. And then I began to examine, with grave suspicion, every mole and imperfection on my body, looking for changes and irregularities in shape and texture.

So last weekend, during our heat wave, after writing the story about teens and tanning, we went to the beach. Instead of slapping on the Hawaiian Tropic, I dutifully applied sunscreen. Rather than prancing around in a bikini at high noon, I wore a long sleeve shirt and a hat, and made every effort to stay out of direct sunlight.

No more tanning for me. No more burning. No more molting. I'll stick with the pale skin I was born with. (Besides, it takes a lot to make me blush these days.)