This piece was first published in issue twenty-seven. You can buy the issue here or subscribe here.

I’m lying on the floor. To my right is the thrum of a fan heater, which throws a hot wind over my lower legs. Through the window I can see ripples of light thrown across the sea by the setting sun. Fishing boats motor steadily by, heading out to night fishing grounds with high hopes. And a curious seal, a regular harbour visitor, bobs upright in the water and looks straight at me. Staring, eye-to-eye, across water and through glass, I suddenly feel self-conscious and a blush starts to creep from my toes, up my legs, across my torso. Can he see me? What does it matter when I’m already being observed, stared at, deconstructed and re-drawn by twelve studious artists?

I am a life model. When I tell people this they look at me with a mixture of awe and mischief. A flicker crosses their eyes as they imagine me, or perhaps themselves, publicly naked, always followed by an expression of encouragement, “Good for you! I couldn’t do that—especially here!” I live in a small community and I see my artists in the supermarket, at the doctor’s. I sell them coffee and teach their children.

Life modelling happened by accident. I came home to recuperate, ill and wrung dry by five years in the city. I had to strip everything back. Along with unpeeling layers of tension, came layers of clothing. The nourishing of my soul went hand-in-hand with a gentle acceptance and appreciation of my body as I walked through the hills, around beaches and met my artist friend for long painting sessions. I would lie and talk, naked but cocooned in a safe place. Being asked to lie still after years of running to make everything work was a relief.

I want to understand my own body. I want to both love and care less about the particulars of my physicality. I want to be intimate with the entirety of my skin, the fibres of my muscles, the tingle of my nerves. I want to be proud and stand tall, with or without clothes.

And yet, at the start of every class, as I stand watching the clock approach 7 pm, I hesitate over the knot in my robe. I take a deep breath, work my fingers fast, drape the robe haphazardly over a stool and throw myself into the first pose. Usually something challenging that will take all my concentration to hold for two minutes, something with arms aloft. I use the time to think of the next pose.

As the poses get longer—ten, fifteen, thirty minutes—my body starts to talk to me. An ache calls from my neck and I subtly shift my weight to an elbow. When this doesn’t help, I locate another, less intense and more bearable complaint in my knee and redirect my brain until it forgets about my neck. Pins and needles become a welcome diversion. I feel the prickles start and increase in intensity. I resist the urge to move, to shake them off as they become a scattering, a tingling and then a warmth. A deep glow. And it’s over. I’ve won! And I haven’t moved a muscle.

Once settled into a longer pose, once each muscle has been tested for comfort and durability, I am free to wander. I have intentions of thinking usefully, attacking the minutiae of procrastinated projects. The sound of pencil, charcoal, pen, swiping and scrit-scratching, and the steady breathing of the artists is soothing and I drift through memories and daydreams. I feel like a teenager again, with time and space to conjure up what ifs in my mind’s eye. Once or twice I have even fallen asleep. Until, with a jerk I hope isn’t physical, I have the overwhelming and sudden realisation that I am completely naked. In a room full of strangers.

We break for tea, chat and much-needed movement. I put my robe back on. Some shyly show me their work and I am eager to see my form in another’s eyes. Translated through another’s hand, I am soft and curved, I am shaded almost black, I am all angles and fierce lines, I am neon yellow, pink and blue, I am a tentative pencil sketch. I am more than myself. I am a figure given to others. I feel in awe of my body: fascinating and respected and needed.

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