I didn’t think I’d get to take a birthday nude this year. My husband has been very ill. All of my time is spent taking care of him, our household, and the business we own together. Besides, I had already done 25 birthday nudes. It’s a good number to hang it up on.
But the world is teeming with life. Spirit guardians and the cosmos seem to conspire toward giving me sensual gifts. Rays of sun through stained glass windows. A warm autumn day with a moment to spare. A rare lazy morning without pain.
The 26th birthday nude then: an homage to my iconic portrait set in my home, a tip of the hat to a title once given to me a long time ago. XXX Pornsaint.
Birthday gifts: new friends surrounding me. I don’t feel so isolated in our tower of glass. I find myself surrounded by people who need healing of the body and the spirit. I feel called to step into this role but sometimes feel woefully inadequate, humble, and grateful. I am open and willing to grapple with what I do not know. I am happy that I am still discovering new things about myself. Thank you! 🙏✨
Welcome to my new home in an old church, illuminated with sunlight filtered through vibrant stained glass windows casting an ethereal glow that breathes life into the stillness of this sacred space. These stained glass windows have been standing here for 131 years, still intact though cracked and sagging in some places, still radiating beauty, a reminder to embrace my flaws and celebrate the light that reflects through me.
I stand here naked, not just of the body but of the spirit. I was born not just to exist but to proclaim my truth. 25 years of birthday nudes has led to this most provocative image: the divine and the profane. Isn’t it the human experience to reach for divinity from our carnal form? Do we not spend our lives locked in a struggle between light and dark, courage and vulnerability, life and death?
At my age, each birthday brings a whisper of death. And as more of my loved ones cross over, that whisper gets louder. I hear their voices inside me now. I take on what was vital in them and keep it alive in me. Like stained glass windows, I am a mosaic of moments, pieces of my beloveds shining through me in every story I tell about them.
I am filled with a renewed sense of purpose: to shine! For the sake of those who are not anymore with us, and for the sake of those of us who remain and need a beacon to remind ourselves that it is okay to be brave and vulnerable and flawed and old and weird and scared. I love you.
Outside the rain beat a percussive song upon the roof, windows, and gutters of our farmhouse. It filled my head with melodies and I hummed along. I am in love with life and nature. How can I fall deeper in love with life?
I ran out naked and bathed in the rain. Ligo sa ulan.
This is my birthday nude this year. Completely nude. No make-up, no filter, no hair dye. Just flowers and leaves surrounding my head, grass and mud squished underneath my feet, and rain rain rain on my skin and hair.
I had a rainy birthday, so Jay suggested that we recreate our very first photo shoot, Rainy Day Girl. He let me borrow his 100+ year old coat tails, handed me a frog umbrella, and followed me around our backyard with a camera. Tracing our steps back to the first time we played with a camera together was as refreshing as the misty autumn air. It reminded us both of that electric excitement we felt when we first started dating and collaborating.
It’s been over 25 years since Rainy Day Girl. We’ve accumulated deeply scarring emotional baggage as well as amazing memories of profound connection. I am grateful for all of it. I open myself up for more. At some point during our rainy day frolic in the backyard I got down on a bed of wet autumn leaves on the ground. Sometimes the only way to create beauty is to get dirty.
There were clouds and rain on the forecast but it was sunny on the morning of my birthday. Maybe a little windy, but the sun felt warm on my bare skin. https://t.co/2CZnCaACNNpic.twitter.com/fa595Z0C33
I put on the antlers Jay bought me a few days ago. It made me happy to run around naked in the woods behind our house where many a herd of deer have passed through. I keep a pile of fruit and vegetable scraps at the edge of the wood year round, but winter is when the wild life need it most.
I hiked to the top of this cliff. Jay took my photos from the bottom of the rocky hill.
It was a perfect autumn morning. The wind prickled my skin and the sun soothed it. Pine needles on the bald rocks felt slippery under my bare feet. https://t.co/2CZnCaACNNpic.twitter.com/L69UUNw9Ly
I went down on all fours like a beast, waving my invisible tail side to side. When I descended he covered me with his arms and told me I was beautiful.
It’s gorgeous out! Gonna get some sun time. Have a beautiful Saturday! Here’s some more from the full set of birthday nudes barefoot outdoors pics at https://t.co/urjztDkZYD 💋
We made love tenderly at first, then dirty, like animals. He filled me and filled me and filled me until I oozed delirious and he was spent.
Every year since 1999 I take a nude photo on my birthday. It’s now a 21-year tradition that will not end in 2020. Life goes on and so will I. This year’s birthday nude is coming soon to https://t.co/2CZnCaACNNpic.twitter.com/phlSkfdPwS
I washed up, got dressed, and picked up our kid from school. I slid to the passenger seat to let her drive us home.
“How was your day?” I asked. She paused before she told me she had a weird day of not much happening in her classes, then at study hall her friend messaged to say that his dad died. He wasn’t ill. He just died. My daughter seemed deeply affected by that. It hit her hard to think that any day, without warning or indication, she could lose either one of her parents, too.
I took a proactive role and said that we should go get food for her friend’s family. We got a whole rotisserie chicken, a vegetable side dish, and yellow chrysanthemums. I told my daughter to text her friend to ask if we could come over with some food. He said yes.
By the time we got out of the grocery store, it was pouring really hard. My daughter drove in the rain to her friend’s house. It was a long way to Hope, which is the next town over from ours. She turned into a dirt road and up a hill. At the top of the hill is her friend’s house. His family had moved here from Illinois just a year ago. The car parked outside still has Illinois plates. Who knows what situation they are in now without the father?
My daughter wanted me to come along with her. She is so shy, my kid. We put on our masks and walked up to the house.
Her friend answered the door. He looked tired. His eyes were red and puffy.
“I’m so sorry,” I said, as I handed him the paper bag full of food.
He said, “None of us feel like cooking.”
“We figured,” I said. I wanted to hug him, but I didn’t know what was right anymore. We ran back to the car to get out of the rain.
When we got home, my daughter baked me a birthday cake while Jay and I made dinner. We talked about life and love. We told stories and laughed. Underneath it all was the thought that death comes for us all, sooner or later. The question isn’t when, it’s how.
We all get to pick our poison. Some people choose alcohol, drugs, sugar. Others have an obsession with thinness and beauty. Then there are those whose passion becomes a poison, revolutionaries, workaholics, lovers of all kinds.
Jay always said he wanted a beautiful woman to kill him. She could be me, killing him slowly, one headache, one heartache, at a time. If my life was a painting, I’ve already messed up the canvas, made many mistakes and accumulated regrets for inaction. It’s time to pull together all the loose ends, the painful lessons, the dark memories of my life and transform it into a beautiful work of art.
That night, as I blew out the candles on my birthday cake, I wished for more time to love him the way he wants to be loved as a unique and extraordinary human. I’ve only just begun to learn how.
Not gonna lie, I struggled with this year’s Birthday Nude. The entire process was discomforting. I found myself being hypercritical of my aging body. I booted up my images in Lightroom and moved the texture slider all the way to the left to smooth out my spongy middle. I sent the images to Photoshop and cloned my wrinkles and belly folds away. Then in a fit of frustration I closed them all up unsaved.
For the Birthday Nude series to stay relevant in the years to come I’m going to have to post these photos unedited as I always have or I won’t do them at all.
If I continue, I will have to confront my naked self, not just my aging body. My emotional reactions reveal so much of who I am. Posting it publicly adds another layer of confrontation. I will have to ask myself the hard questions. How do I feel? Why do I feel this way? Do I feel shame? What am I ashamed of?
I have come to an age when I am proud of who I am and where I’m at in life. That doesn’t mean I look at my body with rose-colored glasses. As someone who has spent decades creating media with my body, I can look at images of myself with objectivity.
In these photos I wear nothing but make-up. I have not given in to temptations of botox or cosmetic surgery. Yet. Maybe never. I don’t know. No judgement on those who do. I haven’t dyed my hair since four months ago and I’m liking the streak of gray growing out of the right side of my hairline.
I enjoyed celebrating my birthday this year. I feel like I’ve been celebrating for weeks now, random presents, time spent with people I adore.
I look at my healthy, beautiful, smart, and talented daughter and feel successful as a mother. Mothering my child has been top priority for the past fifteen years. Everyone and everything else took the back seat. It’s worth it. I invested my time and energy wisely. Now I’m opening myself up to mothering more of the world.
My co-parent, business partner, artistic collaborator, lover, my Man. How I love my Man. We’ve been through so much, good times and nightmarish ones. For so long I’ve taken him for granted, thinking he doesn’t need my mothering because he’s eight years older than me, bolder than me, everything more than me. I was wrong. We’re holding on for dear life and rediscovering who we are to each other at each stage of the game.
College boy somehow slipped in as one of my favorite people on this planet. We’ve known each other for years and he knows most sides of my compartmentalized life. During those moments when my Man was too emotionally involved in the situation to be my friend, my boy took me in his arms and told me he’s got me. I take care of him, too.
And you… I appreciate you. Thank you for coming along on my journey.
May Ling Su birthday nude in the barn hayloft, sitting on a vintage World War II army cot.
This year marks my 20th birthday nude. We shot at home. The photo above was taken in the barn hayloft, an amazing play space when it’s warm enough. It’s a reminder to seize the moment. Winter is coming. Life goes by way too fast. My time is limited. Soon we will have to leave our 169-year-old haunted farmhouse that we’ve made even more haunted with vintage treasures. I’m a little sad to go, but excited to begin once more.
The photo above was taken in the backyard, lush with wildflowers and this abundant hydrangea bush. It’s a sanctuary for birds, bees, and butterflies. Snakes and mice. Chipmunks and squirrels. The best approach to mothering nature is to let it be wild (also applies to mothering humans).
This past year I’ve been spending a lot of time in nature, hiking up mountains and swimming in lakes. This summer I participated in a podcast with Agam, for which they paid me by planting four trees in my name. I intend to plant more trees every year for the rest of my life as part of my legacy.
