This is a guest post by the lovely Pamela Hunt-Cloyd. If you haven’t read her Walking on My Hands, I hope you’ll click over and add it to your reader. Despite what she might say about it, her writing epitomizes what trust tending means to me. And while you’re at it, go read this that she posted at Lindsey’s A Design So Vast yesterday. Teared me up in the very best way.
I don’t remember the day I realized I was short. Short, small, petite, diminutive, wee, miniscule, cute. All of those names sound so sweet, don’t they? Our society loves its women small. In elementary school I had a friend, Amy, who was tall. There was always a look of surprise in the other mom’s eyes when they saw her. “Wow,” they would say, “I bet you’re as tall as the boys.” When they saw me, it was different. “Oh,” they would whisper to my mom, “She’s so tiny.”
But there are other memories too. Once, when I was in first grade, I was getting a drink from the water fountain during recess, and after I stood up, there was a big kid blocking my way. He was a foot and a half taller than me, fifty pounds heavier, and wearing a brown shirt. “Hurry up Firstie,” he said, and I remember the feeling of panic that came over me. That panic that only little kids have, that great fear of bodily harm, abandonment, and loss. I quickly ran away from him shaking, and I never wanted to go back to school again.
When I told my mom about it, she asked me what Firstie even meant. “It’s what they call first-graders,” I said and my mom laughed. “Well,” she said, “You are in first grade.” My mom was five feet tall when she was nine years old, and then she only grew about an inch after that. As a tall girl in her childhood, my mom didn’t really see things from my perspective. It was clear to me that this was a battle I had to fight on my own.
The same thing happened again a few years later. “Out of my way Firstie,” a burly kid said to me in the lunchroom. Only this time, I was in fourth grade, and I had on my favorite velour shirt: Izod, with the alligator prominently placed. I was outraged.
“What grade are you in?” I asked, putting my hands on my hips.
“Second,” he said, in a voice that also said, What’s it to you?
“Well I’m in fourth grade,” I said and his face showed surprise.
“Oh,” he said, quickly backing up, his eyes wide. “Sorry.”
I watched him hustle away with his lunch tray and felt victorious. There was power in being the underdog, I realized. You had surprise on your side. I sometimes wonder how that tiny, miniscule, early experience affected me. It’s possible that it made me into a certain kind of person.
There is a way you can be when other people discount you that you can’t be any other time. Dani Shapiro and Katrina Kenison have often talked about “writing in the dark.” Creating when no one knows what you are up to. Protecting the undeveloped image until it is ready for the light. Hiding the secret, creative self as long as you can until the work is finished.
For a time, that was what being short meant to me. It was a prolonged youth, a delayed adolescence. It was a chance to hide for a while and then pounce. Now, at thirty-eight I am not sure what short means to me. I think much more often about how much I weigh than about how tall I am. But really, isn’t it the same thing? Tiny, cute, diminutive, wee. Our society loves its women small.
As I have gotten older, I have noticed that sometimes I use my size as an excuse to play small. I find that I react rather than act, that I am still learning how to take responsibility for my own life. I have always been able to sneak in after the bell and hide behind the tall people. Even as a teenager, I could get away with paying the child’s price to get in. I never had to stand tall or stare out over a crowd. I never had to say this is who I am and you’re going to have to deal with it.
As it turns out, there is a cost to shirking the full price of admission. It’s interesting, what the body teaches us, isn’t it? That the container of our soul can have such an influence on what we decide about our lives, about what we conclude about our own worth. Being small, for me, is easy. It’s convenient and it’s safe. Sometimes I take my six-foot husband’s pants out of the dryer, hold them up, and marvel at how exhausting it must be to stand so tall every day.
But there is always a danger in too much comfort. There is a tipping point at which a dog hiding under the table ceases to be considered an underdog. For me it’s a constant struggle to remember that only my body is small, to realize that even if my five-year old son is almost at my shoulder, I am still the grown-up. Being short is no excuse for living small. Nothing is.
Everything Belongs
Seasons are universal. Treat yours uniquely.
I love this. I’m the opposite of your mom: I didn’t break 5 feet until I was 14 and then I grew a lot – I’m 5’6″. But somehow I still identify as a short person. Isn’t it weird. I am the shortest person in a very tall family. I wear tall heels all the time when I’m at work, to the point where I went through security with a friend from work a few years ago, and we both had our shoes off, and he (a very tall guy, 6’3″) looked down at me with shock on his face. “I had no idea you were so tiny,” he said. I’m not actually tiny – at all – but it’s funny that the way we think of ourselves and the way the world sees us. I know I write about this ad nauseum but I haven’t thought must about it in terms of our physical selves. But it totally echoes the emotional selves, doesn’t it? xox
Comment by Lindsey — June 22, 2011 @ 6:57 amI was always sort of an average-sized kid, but I’m a short woman – 5’4″. (I know that’s not unusually short, but to hear my 5’7″ younger sister gloat, you’d think it was.) I also sometimes use my size as an excuse to play small, and I’m gradually realizing the truth of your words, Pam. It’s no excuse at all.
Comment by Katie — June 22, 2011 @ 8:23 amPamela, thank you SO MUCH for your wise words here. My mind goes a couple of different directions as I read them:
I think you’re so right that our society likes its women small…and confusingly, I think it has a parallel story about the desirability of women being tall. I wonder whether this double message plays a part in the ambivalence that tall AND short women have about their size.
And I’m also drawn so much to the line you wrote about not having to stand tall and say “this is who I am and you’re going to have to deal with it”. As a tall woman, I have felt obligated to stand tall, but simultaneously, nearly just as often, haven’t felt the right or confidence to say the “this is who I am” line. I may arguably have had to develop more muscles, because of my height, to get me to the point of saying “this is who I am”, but I’m wondering whether that challenge of owning who we are is connected even more to being a woman in this society, than to height.
Thank you again, for a beautiful, thought-provoking post!
Comment by Kristin — June 22, 2011 @ 11:31 amThank you for inviting me here Kristin! Your site and your wisdom have opened my heart so much over the past few months. It’s a true honor to be here!
Love,
Comment by Pamela — June 22, 2011 @ 1:20 pmPamela
I am 5′ 9″ . My Guatemalan daughter will likely barely clear 5 feet. But her spirit is already taller than mine. I slump, always have – to hide, to disappear. She will never want to disappear, can’t conceive of the need to. I am glad to hear you feeling your power, your Towering Spirit, Live Large! If you hadn’t I would not have found your wisdom!
Comment by Susan M — June 23, 2011 @ 5:50 amI love this point & counter-point of tall and short. I’ve always been tall (taller than my 5th and 6th grade teachers, taller than all the boys until 7th grade, too tall to be a ballet dancer…) and have experienced the ambivalence of it all my life. Wanting to be cute & tiny. Even when I was solid muscle, I wasn’t “small”. It took me a long time to see tall as beautiful and I’m rarely able to hide, although I’ve tried.
Comment by Alana — June 23, 2011 @ 10:58 amAs always I’m grateful to both of you, Pamela and Kristin, for your words. And I think Kristin, you speak wisely when you say the challenge of owning who we are has more to do with being a woman in our society, than our height (or weight, or job description or…). And amazingly enough here we all are, learning to say “This is Who I Am”.
Alana, your words put a gust of wind in the sail I feel joined with all of you in using: yes: here we all are, learning to say “This is Who I Am.”
Comment by Kristin — June 23, 2011 @ 2:59 pmPamela, I first met you through your words and so, like Lindsey, have long thought of you as Pam the Great: big heart, big soul, big courage, big spirit. big talent. Small? Not a word I’d ever have associated with you! At 5’4, I feel lucky that I fit into airline seats and frustrated when every pair of pants I try on are way too long. But I’m a woman, so being small is easy. My heart goes out, though, to my son, who is also(barely) 5’4, a full six inches shorter than his kid brother, always the smallest guy in the room, and at age 21, still mistaken for a young teenager. Perhaps as a culture we do like our women small, but we expect our men to be tall, and those who aren’t suffer. Lots to think about here. And I guess we all need to learn to say, simply, This is who I am. Maybe that’s what it means to grow up.
Comment by Katrina Kenison — June 24, 2011 @ 7:15 amKatrina I love your point so much: maybe learning to say This is who I am is what it means to grow up, no matter our gender.
Comment by Kristin — June 24, 2011 @ 2:50 pmOh, how this post resonated with me. I’ve come back to re-read it twice now, and as I read, I heard words in my head–pixie, firecracker, cute, tiny–that others have used to describe me. They are meant to be affectionate, and I have fought for years to embody the hugeness and power of my SELF in a small (5’1″–almost) body. My maiden name is Schwartz, and one of my early elementary school memories is of kids making fun of my name: Shortz. Finally, like you, in my late 30s, I am growing up into my fullness. My latest: “Big spirit, small package.”
Thank you for sharing your words and experience here.
Comment by Jena — July 5, 2011 @ 3:26 am