Travel — Life — Memories

5 Things No One Tells You About Sleeping Naked Abroad

Nobody has told you this

Photo by Annie Spratt on Unsplash

Strange memories on this Anatolian morning. My cat is fed, my wife is happy, and, as I pen this, Sturg Writes It Down is in an RV somewhere in the Americas singing to me on Substack.

Yes, life is good as I reminisce on all the different ways and places I have slept naked.

One would think, a man of my lore and ilk would be free to sleep however I wish to sleep, but as Frederick the Donkey taught me in West Kerry during the summer of 2003, no man is ever truly free and must take into account everything life and a good wife can throw his way.

But what can I do?

1: Sleeping naked on a beach (Reunion Island)

When I was 22, I was full of gumption, so I booked a one-way ticket to an Indian Ocean island with no job, no money, and no French. Surprisingly, I was homeless after a few weeks.

I learned a lot about sleeping naked on the beach.

One of them being that women with small children are screamish and nosy. I also learned that sleeping naked on a hard slab of rock is surprisingly more comfortable than sleeping on sand. Go figure.

Eventually, I was moved on by authorities and found a hammock on an abandoned beach called Devil’s Point, where I lived by myself for 16 months and slowly lost my mind before finally getting a job as a teacher.

2: Sleeping Naked on an air mattress with cattle (Ireland)

Before the Island, back when I was a young whipper snapper with dreams of becoming a politician, I used to go drinking in a village by the sea, far away from my father’s prying eyes. I loved that village. There was a church that got converted into a bubble disco on Saturdays, where the youth could safely finger each other — yes, each other, men can have fun, too — under the watchful eyes of God.

After the bubbles, we’d camp by the sea with the girls.

I always slept under the stars on the cold grass, but this one night, a girl I met at the church bubble disco insisted on sleeping on an air mattress. She also wanted me to wear underwear.

She sounded like my cousin.

We argued. I left and slept naked in a cattle field surrounded by cows.

Sleeping in a cattle field naked is the perfect spot, as the ground is warm from fresh manure.

Try it.

3: Sleeping Naked at home (Ireland)

My first real manly memory of having my nakedness questioned was when I was a teen in 2003.

My father, for reasons only known to himself, bought a donkey. Context: We lived in the town center. He named the donkey Frederick.

One night, as I slept — naked — I heard a knock at the door.

It was a Police Officer.

I opened the door — naked.

“Is your father awake, young Murph?” he asked.

“He be asleep, Garda, he be asleep. What be you here now?” I asked. Context: This is how Irish people talk. Don’t Google it.

“Ah, be now, boy. Wake him from the peat and Sheeries and be told his ass has brought havoc onto the town of Tralee.” The garda lit a cigarette and looked at my penis. ‘Why you be naked, boy?”

“Ah, it be how I sleep, Garda. It help with da dreams.” I lit a cigarette.

The Garda kept his beady eyes on my tiny member and said, “Be going now, you be and find the Donkey. He be making stress with the traffic, man.”

“I do be,” I said, and that was that.

4: Chasing a Donkey around town in my underwear

Before climate change was invented by liberals, Ireland’s nights in 2003 were humid, so venturing into town at 1 am in your underwear to find a donkey was not frowned upon.

I didn’t much care for the donkey, but my father loved him. He used to say, “At least that ass is useful, Peter.”

I found Frederick in Mick O’Shea’s pub, just off Milk Market Lane, across from the square. The owner, Mick O’shea, greeted me with ponderous ease as he opened the half door to his pub, which, by the way, was having a lock-in.

Frederick seemed happy enough in the beer garden for now, so I pulled up a stool and asked Mick if I could have a pint of Guinness.

“D’ya have be having money, young Murphy?” he asked.

“I do be, Mick, but I bring it on the morrow after I fix this here Donkey trouble.”

Mick leaned in, lit a cigar, and poured me a nibble of Powers whiskey, “And why, young murph, do you think the donkey is important. What reason there be for a man in a town with only a few square footage of grass to be keeping a donkey?”

“Frederick?” I peered back into the beer garden. “Sure, Mick, isn’t everything we love a bit of an inconvenience?”

5: Earthquakes in Turkey

Years later, after Frederik died and Mike O’shea’s closed down, I found myself sleeping naked in Anatolia with my wife when an earthquake forced us onto the street.

Luckily, my wife forced me to sleep in pajamas for that very moment.

She had said, “Life is not all cattle, discos, and donkeys. In life, people die and lose their homes. Wear pajamas so you don’t freeze on the street.”

Sometimes I feel like I am my wife’s Frederick.

Well, now it’s time to go to work and pay some rent. The cattle are gone, Frederick is dead, but the cat is fed, the wife is happy, and Sturg is on Substack singing Under The Bridge.

My brother and I kissing Frederik — Photo by dad.