‘I feel self-conscious about my post-masectomy body, but no one raised an eyebrow’ - The Jewish Chronicle

Expand your horizons, Mama!” proclaimed my 17-year-old as we dug into warm apple strudel atop Merkur Mountain, looking out into the thick, blank fog that obscured the sweeping views of the Black Forest we’d been promised.

You’ve got to love how teenagers are the first, ever, to discover all the dangers of the world, take them on headlong, then inform all previous teenagers (aka boomers) that they were always lame and unadventurous. Here I am, half a century old, a world traveller, a cancer survivor, and I am unadventurous.

This particular proclamation came after my confession that I hadn’t loved our highlight activity of the half-term trip,and that, had I known what it would entail, I would not have done it. I say “highlight” because for every family trip we do, I try to include one activity that is likely to be named when we go around the table at Friday night dinner to each share our “highlight of the week”.

Karen and family on scooters in the Vosges Mountains[Missing Credit]

The highlight activity I chose this time was an electric scooter tour of the Vosges Mountains near Strasbourg. My French is decent but, admittedly, I was confused by the different categories of tours, even when I clicked the English translation; why was there a category “for athletes”? Here is the English translation I would offer, having now completed the activity: it is not for athletes, but maniacs! On our scooters (no seatbelts!), we raced up and down the steep mountain at 40km/h, flying over rocks and forest debris, skimming sheer drops, often, as on Merkur, with zero visibility.

Was it beautiful? Bien sûr! We saw four medieval castles in the swirling mist, the golden light as it passed through the seasonally hued trees. Did I think I was going to chip all my teeth as they chattered over the craggy terrain? Did I think I was going to fly off my scooter and break my leg or neck? Did I think I might scoot straight off the mountainside? Bien sûr!

Expand my horizons? We still had a couple of days left on our trip. We were in Baden Baden, the storied spa town of Dostoyevsky and Turgenev. Baden Baden: the name means bath bath. We bathed in the fog of Merkur, we had bathed in hot and cold pools of Caracalla, but would I expand my horizons and go to the other baths of Baden Baden, the formidable Friedrichsbad thermal bathhouse, which is… textile free?

Reader, I did! (Also, I dragged my husband along). Obviously, I had major reservations: 1) I am painfully North American (prude!); and 2) I’m painfully Jewish (terrified of germs and floating body hairs!). But well above both of those issues is a new self-consciousness about my appearance, specifically my post-mastectomy missing accoutrements: no nipples!

For two hours, we were shuttled through 17 rooms – hot pool, cold pool, shower, warm-air room, hot-air room, mineral-infused steam room, rest room, etc. We were given stiff tablecloth-like towels to wrap ourselves in as we went from station to station, but this was mere theatre. Why bother when you’re hanging out naked the rest of the time?

Of course, we didn’t look at the other nude bodies – how rude! But in our postmortem dissection of the experience, my husband said he happened to notice two other circumcised men. “Did you give them the nod?” I asked, referring to that look that passes between me and a stranger when we are both wearing Star of David or chai necklaces. He shook his head.

As for me, if I had been looking, it had been for other visible cancer survivors, others with surgically transformed body parts, missing accoutrements. None. No nods, affirmations of experience, shared trauma. On the other hand, no one (not) looking at me had raised an eyebrow. So perhaps it’s not a big deal. Or perhaps visitors to Friedrichsbad have very expanded horizons. The baths are open to anyone aged 14 and up—meaning, my 17-year old was welcome to go (not with me, heaven forbid!).

He declined. Honestly, kids these days are so lame. They should really expand their horizons.

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