Clothing-optional yoga retreat leaves its mark

“It’s quaint but scary. Sort of like ‘Children of the Corn’ meets a small Texas football town.”

Those descriptive, yet somewhat disturbing, words are those of my daughter. She was talking about Sierraville, California -- the town that is host to Sierra Hot Springs.

Kaitlyn was in the middle of nowhere – at the destination of the yoga retreat. This was Kaitlyn’s gift to

herself after earning her masters’ degree in education. She could have invited any number of her friends or cousins, but this was something she wanted to do on her own.

Trust me – she does not get this independent sense of adventure from me. When I was her age I couldn’t walk into a bar alone even if I was meeting my friends.

When she told me that she booked a trip to a yoga retreat in California, I was stunned. First, I had to confirm that I was in no way financially backing this excursion. After I was confident I didn’t have to write a check, I was all for it. Totally supported it. That was in December.

As the date of her departure approached, I grew a little more apprehensive. Not only was she flying alone, she was then renting a car and driving 4-plus hours from the San Francisco airport to the quaint yet scary town of Sierraville.

Unbeknownst to my daughter, my visions alternated between Rod Serling’s “The Hitch-Hiker” and any air disaster movie that was ever made. I pictured my only daughter behind the wheel of a huge Oldsmobile, her hair perfectly coiffed in a French chignon (ala Inger Stevens) with an odd man sitting in the back seat, his eerie smile taking up the whole rear view mirror. Yikes. Being the good mother that I am, I did not share these visions with Kaitlyn. She was too freaked out by what happened with Southwest Flight 1380, where a passenger tragically died after an engine malfunction. I assured her that lightening, so to speak, won’t hit twice and that now she was less likely to experience any airplane disaster. Then I suggested she do what I always do when flying – take Ativan. And a lot of it.

Since she was traveling alone, Kaitlyn said she didn’t want to be impaired in any way at any time. I agreed that was a smart decision – since she was the one flying, not me.

The night before she was leaving Kaitlyn, Matthew and I were sitting at the kitchen table eating dinner (Tommy was in Tucson, Arizona for work - and oddly, I didn’t have any concerns when he left. Hmmmm, that’s got to mean something, but I’m not in the mood to self-analyze) when Kaitlyn provided me with an update on her trip – info that she just learned herself.

The retreat was clothing optional. What? Seriously, what? Repeat that. No surprise that I laughed. For about 15 minutes. And hard. I haven’t laughed that hard in a long, long time. Once I could speak, I said to my daughter, “It’s times like this when I really, really miss your father.”

Jim would have picked up that “clothing optional” ball and ran 100 yards with it. Coast to coast. And this small tidbit of info would have supplied him with years of jokes and snarky remarks.

He was, after all, the parent who randomly sent Kaitlyn photos of sea gulls and clowns, just because she’s freaked out by both. After his mom died and he inherited (reluctantly) her collection of clown statues (yes, that’s right, my mother-in-law was obsessed with clowns) Jim found a new past time. Every other week or so, after Kaitlyn left the house for the night, Jim would dive into his stash of clown statues and place a few not too many because that would be too obvious - in spots that would only catch Kaitlyn’s eye subtly. You’d think after one or two times of these clown visitations Kaitlyn’s skin would thicken. It didn’t. That screech she emitted on the inaugural stealthy clown invasion was just as earpiercing as the last one.

So, since I didn’t have Jim to share in this new (or nude?) revelation, I had to rely on my youngest son -and he did not disappoint.

In the middle of my laughing fit Matthew asked what clothing optional meant. I told him that people can be naked if they wanted to. I should have been a bit more careful in word choice. Matthew may have Down syndrome, but he’s still a teenager and like most teenagers the sounds of bodily functions are music to his ears. So, of course when he heard the word naked, well, he couldn’t stop laughing. Some things are just innate.

Once I stopped laughing I checked the resort’s website, and we were able to determine that not all areas of the retreat were clothing optional. OK, I said to Kate, you may be able to avoid naked people (Matthew thought this sentence was the funniest thing he ever heard.)

And the next day, she was gone. She drove herself to an airport shuttle service at 3 in the morning, got to the airport and winged her way to San Fran (without the anxiety-relieving help I would have required.) She landed, picked up her rental car, made a pit stop at the scenic wonder of Donner’s Pass (site of the cannibalfest established by the Donner Party during the Gold Rush) and drove on in to Sierraville.

She called home while she was there for an update on her progress. In the middle of the conversation she said, “Some guy just waved at me. Is that what they do here?”

Ahh -- that Philly influence. Over the course of the two days there she hiked, did yoga, chatted with people from all over the country (they were clothed) and toured the cross between “Children of the Corn” and a small Texas football town that is Sierraville.

Then she hopped in her Oldsmobile (actually, it was a Hyundai) and headed to Lake Tahoe. She spent the afternoon there, then headed to San Francisco and then on to the airport.

Once she got to the airport, I was finally able to relax. While I was thrilled for her that she was accomplishing this, I was incredibly nervous. I kept seeing that Hitch Hiker, or Ted Bundy, or an FLDS church member in the market for another wife, or a cult leader with long hair, a long beard and holding a daisy. I texted her “DON’T LET PEOPLE KNOW YOU’RE TRAVELING ALONE!” Yes, I used shouty caps because I wanted to impress upon her how important that message was.

And once Kaitlyn was home, well, I could breathe freely. And that’s when I could fully appreciate what my daughter had just accomplished.

I was thrilled that she was strong enough, brave enough and adventurous enough to make this experience happen. But I should not have been surprised. She showed this character trait when she was just six years old. We were on the boardwalk in Ocean City (MD) on a cloudy, overcast afternoon. She wanted to go on a ride that was like the Salt and Pepper (capsules that turned, twisted and went around in a nauseating fashion). There was no way I was going on with her, and Jim wasn’t about to, either. Tommy was too young. That’s OK, she said, “I’ll go by myself. I really want to ride this.”

Jim and I looked at each other, shrugged our shoulders, and let her go. We held each other’s gaze for a minute, but didn’t say anything. I think we both realized that our little girl had just showed a side of herself that would take her far in life.

And we were right. And thankfully, there weren’t naked people on that boardwalk ride. Or clowns. Cheryl Kehoe Rodgers is a content editor at The Times Herald. She can be reached at crodgers@ timesherald.com.