Peeing as a Pack
Growing up in Bavaria’s farmlandia, we practically made a sport of freiluftpinkeln[1]. I mean, it’s not like we were going to interrupt our precious playtime to run up to the house from the garden, or make our way home from the forest, river, lake – wherever the chosen playground of the day – just to go pee. Of course not. We just found a bush or a tree to cosy up against, squatted down, did our thing, and back to childhood business we went. No biggie.
Now, I didn’t stick around rural suburbia for long enough to know if this easy-going, it-is-what-it-is attitude followed girls into teenage and beyond. Based on what I know from the city-dwellers I hung out with starting aged twelve, I assume this carefreeness went flying out of the window as soon as a fresh breeze of awkwardness came flying in. Because that seems to be the pattern: we’re born, pure, in-tune and comfortable with our body and its natural urges, and by the time we hit our teens, a dangerous cocktail of societal brainwashing and relentless hormones leaves our cheeks, formerly rosy with innocent delight, suddenly flush with shame.
Puuufff! There they go – those days of wonder and true-to-the-word carpe-fucking-diem adults like to preach, but only children know to practice without actually trying. No more undressing for gym class without a bother in the world. No more wearing whatever we want because we like the colour and the graphics on our t-shirt because – dog forbid – the boobs could look too small, too big, too saggy, too unshapely, and the wrinkles in our belly could be visible. And definitely no more outdoor peeing because what if someone sees us and anyway, girls don’t do that.
*
I’m not quite sure when that moment happened for me because, up until I was about thirteen, fourteen, I still recall regular intervals of will-you-come-pee-with-me moments with at least two of my closest gal-pals at the time. They just kind of fizzled out and I do think a lot of it had to do with culture. Thinking back to my Bavarian mädls, I can totally see them still sharing bathroom stalls now, taking turns hovering over toilet seats christened with beer-heavy urine one too many times. However, my multi-cultural environment at that time was very much governed by prudish US mentalities, and this type of thing was considered…well, wrong.
I do remember the moment I realized that I had become one of them, though. One of those girls that felt surprisingly weirded out by this level of self-confidence and “open-mindedness”. It was one night before I was going to leave one country for another, one night before I was going to have to get to know and understand a whole other cultural attitude when it came to a woman’s do’s and don’ts. It happened in an unimpressive, typically Dutch, flat field, on an infuriatingly humid summer’s night. The only thing that made it memorable was the beauty of my dear friend walking alongside me in the full moonlight, and what this night signified.
That and the fact that, without warning, right there on the path we were walking along, she dropped trou. Not just trou, but a whole-ass overall, so she was practically squatting before me buck-naked, and just started peeing without ever missing a beat in our conversation. She looked me right in the eye as a steady stream of urine formed a puddle on the ground between her feet, steam rising from it like heat on the tarmac, and just kept on blabbing. I, in turn, held her gaze tightly and tensely, as though we had entered a staring competition. And even though I felt oddly perplexed by the situation – which, given this crazy, wonderful woman’s personality, I really shouldn’t have been – it made me love and admire her just that much more.
*
When it comes to my moments of wild peeing in the past decade or so, none of them were as romantic as those intimate childhood moments with the forest floor or the unapologetic freedom of my naked friend. On the contrary – they all serve as anecdotes to share whenever people bring up their top embarrassing moments. This mostly comes down to one simple fact: the nature of my nature likes to call at the most inconvenient times, and seeing as I’ve hardly ever been alone for the last decade, that means peeing hasn’t been a solitary act for exactly that time either.
You see, when I talk of not having peed alone in years – on the John or otherwise – it’s not down to another motherhood sacrifice. Well, at least not down to mothering a human, anyways. But a dog. A dog with severe separation anxiety, nonetheless. I know, I know – a lot of dogs like following their owners around the house all the time, and many of them like nothing more than to make it their business to check in on you doing your business. Cause, you know, you might be sneaking some food in there. Or you might fall into their drinking hole and they want to be there at the ready to paw you out. Our dawg, however, is a whole other breed of anxious and needy.
He's a home-office dog, meaning he’s been used to the lockdown lifestyle most dogs only got to know now, all his life. Meaning, it takes as little as ten minutes for him to convince himself he has been abandoned when we’re just down the street unloading the car. Meaning, we have always and will continue to take him everywhere. While normal people go on big city trips here and there without ever having to consider what to do should they find themselves needing to go, I find myself in situations where, for lack of public restrooms that don’t come with a whole bar, café or restaurant, I am forced into panic-mode, desperately scanning the environment for dodgy underground parking toilets that won’t frown upon a furry companion.
The last time this happened, we were in Jerez de la Frontera on a business trip. The husband was attending a weekend seminar, and I was doing research for an article. We found a dog-friendly hotel and all was good until I found myself kilometres from said accommodation, cafes, or the like and urgently needing to take a leak. I had gotten so wrapped up in taking pictures and making mental notes, I didn’t hear my bladder calling. So there I was, way outside of town, in some kind of park. Pretty, sure, with a big pond full of ducks and, for the most part, paved walkways around it. But not a dang public toilet in sight.
There were a few trees, but none of them big enough to offer coverage, though, at this stage, I did consider getting to know one of them up close and personal, exposure be damned. After all, I hadn’t encountered much in the way of foot traffic, so a quick in and out of the bushes may have been possible. It just seemed so stressful though; and besides, I would have had to be warding the dawg off at the same time too cause, as I said – the dude just doesn’t understand boundaries. I continued my way around the pond, my pelvic floor squeezed tightly into an ongoing, everlasting Kegel, growing more desperate and less picky about the perfect spot. And then I found it.
To the left of the path, there was a small mound of earth behind which, strangely enough – or so I thought – was a graveyard of tires, at least fifty of them, laid out next to and on top of each other in no particular order or design. It was obviously visible from the footpath; otherwise, I wouldn’t have spotted it. Duh. I had a cunning plan though. I was wearing a little summer dress so, I figured, I’d just slip off my panties, sit on one of those tires, and pee in the hole. No one would ever be the wiser. And I’m sure that the fifteen Motocross heads who came charging towards my chosen lavatory from out of nowhere just as I released and let go, really did see me as just an odd girl who chose to hang back in a field of tires. I, on the other hand, was so mortified I almost stopped mid-stream. Almost.
*
Roughly seven years on, after I hit my sixth month of pregnancy, I had no choice but to let go of all the stresses that come with adult freiluftpinkeln and the fear of getting caught, because the little dancing bear inside my belly was doing the Haka on top of my bladder. Constantly. And at the worst times. I fell pregnant just after the first, hard Spanish lockdown. In other words, I spent most of my time hiking, alone, far away from any crowds. Campo, forest, and deserted beach walks were our thang. Hence, whenever the need arose – and it always did at some point or another – it was never too hard to find a bamboo cave, an overgrown riverbed, or dense shrubbery amidst which to crouch down and flow, even if it meant emerging with more pinchos on my ass than my dawg sported on his whole body.
By the time I was about ready to pop, I knew all the best places for outdoor peeing adventures on all the routes I frequented and beyond. By then, even after two runs to the toilet – and one extra, just in case – before leaving the house, I knew it wouldn’t stop my daughter from practicing her cha-cha moves in utero, but I felt much more relaxed about the concept of when you gotta go, you gotta go – no matter where. At this point, even urban areas no longer fazed me, and I’m happy to admit that I mastered the art of relaxing into the prospect of mooning passing cars with a butt so white it could easily act like a lighthouse, warning of dangerous, hormone-infused territories occupied by a urinating pregnant lady.
While yes, the whole preggo experience did help me let go of the shame behind taking a leak wherever the hell necessary – quite like men do, though I highly suspect that in their case it is hardly ever necessary but simply possible and accepted – it wasn’t exactly fun. Or freeing, the way it was when we were little. Having practiced yoga up until two weeks prior to giving birth, dropping down into Malasana wasn’t an issue; it was getting back up again with my pants around my ankles, a belly full of a 2.5kg baby, and a nagging case of sciatica that made the whole thing problematic. That and the aforementioned thorns or little wheat stalks tickling my butt and sending me into a panic thinking it could be some weird creepy crawly I couldn’t possibly deal with in this situation.
*
This little trip down this oddly particular memory lane was brought on by my most recent encounter with Jimmy Riddle in the great outdoors. I had left the house just ten minutes earlier, when I found myself in the campo breaking my neck for piss. You may wonder – if you were so close to home, why not just turn back? Why, I’ll tell you. It had taken me almost half an hour to even get out of the house, which is the whole reason why, once again, I had neglected to tune into my bodily urges.
This time it wasn’t creative inspiration that drowned out its calls, but the sheer focus on sorting out my tiny human’s needs, before remembering to think of my own – i.e., the daughter needed to be dressed appropriately for the day’s weather (a whole science in itself), strapped into her baby carrier (like trying to squeeze a starfish into a hole) and hoisted on to my back (an ungraceful move that, when performed wrongly, can easily result in a frozen shoulder). Once all these stages are complete, I have about two minutes to get out the door because the minute she’s in that contraption, she moves to the tune of Bonanza and is overly eager to ride Mama-Pack-Mule down the street. And trust me when I say she has no chill.
There was no way I was going to turn back, set her down, take a leak and then go through that whole palaver again when I could just revisit one of my trusted pregnancy-pissing-places and get it all over and done with in under two minutes. And that’s how I found myself, in a trench formerly lined with trees that had now, oh-so-conveniently been felled, with my dawg standing guard to one side, my right foot firmly placed on the metal frame of my daughter’s carrier to stop it from tipping over, a pack of wet wipes and a doggy bag strategically placed in my reach – and down I went. Instead of worrying about anyone sneaking up behind me, or seeing me from atop the hills that surrounded me, I just thought: this is my life now.
That’s when I remembered one glorious night, years ago on my first camping trip with the husband. We had set up camp by a lake on one of those relentlessly hot August nights, when the terral punished cold-blooded northern bodies like mine with its evil blaze of scorching fury. While my husband lay peacefully snoring, I lay tossing and turning, wanting to unzip my skin and strip down to my bones to escape the miserable heat. The tent felt suffocating so I climbed out, naked, and sat behind a huge log by the lake’s shore. The moon was full, the cicadas were horny and suddenly I felt free and inexplicably weightless – bar the fullness of my bladder. Instead of breaking the spell, I invited this part of nature to add to the magic by propping myself up on the log with my elbows, lowering into a Utkata Konasana and peeing into the wild Malagueñan winds like an earth Goddess.
Oh, those were the days. A gentle reminder of how important it is to enjoy the little things like pissing in solitude. Cause one day, you might find yourself forever peeing as a pack.
Open-air peeing