The Bully

During the Fall my fourth grade year, I began to gain a consciousness of myself. I was quite a bit taller than anyone else in my school except for one or two boys. That probably wouldn’t have been a problem if I had been a boy. But the other kids noticed there was something different about me. I was not only very tall, but I was extremely skinny as well. I became the object of nick names such as “Mama Long Legs,” and “Spider Legs,” which added to my self-consciousness. I could count on the jibes about my appearance every day, but one thing I didn’t count on, was becoming the focus of the class bully. Her name was Janalee.
Janalee was very short and petite. She could also be described as a snob, although I believe the word I used when I told my mother about her was “stuck-up-snot.”
“Why are you so tall, Spider Legs? You look like a giraffe in those stupid brown pants!” She said to me one day. It was just another poke at my appearance, but she always managed to make me feel awkward and much smaller than my height seemed to convey. It seemed that her biggest problem with me, was that I was a poor country girl. She regularly made remarks about my clothing, or my hair followed by an explanation that it was my country upbringing, and not really my fault. Of course, her false sympathy only deepened my lack of self-esteem.
My mother listened to my complaints sympathetically, then gave me some advice that I have never forgotten. She told me that I should go out of my way to do something nice for her if I wanted her to be my friend. I didn’t want her friendship as much as I just wanted her to leave me alone, but I took the advice. It was near Christmas, and I was making handmade jewelry for all my friends. The jewelry was about as country-bumpkin as you could get. I had found some small pieces of wood, and wire in the garage. I twisted the wire into a chain, and painted my friends names on the wood, then attached it to the chain. I knew that the jewelry looked very hand-made, but I figured my friends would like it anyway because I had made it for them. The last necklace that I made had the name Janalee on it. I wrapped it in Christmas paper, then I took it to school and during recess, placed it in Janalee’s desk.
All morning, I was nervous about her reaction. Would the teasing and bullying get worse? At Lunch recess, Janalee found me and asked me why I had given her a Christmas present. I answered her that I had made them for all my friends. She looked at me dumbfounded, and for once she was speechless. She turned and walked away without another word.
The rest of the school year, Janalee paid very little attention to me. She was neither mean nor kind. She simply ignored me. I, of course, was very happy with the situation. I didn’t like her and I was relieved that she no longer found me interesting.
Over the next few years, I occasionally had classes with Janalee. More than once, she mentioned that I had given her a present when we were in fourth grade. She never mentioned it’s remarkably homespun qualities, but I still had the feeling she thought I was well below her class. By this time, however, I realized that she thought everyone was beneath her. She was plain and simply a snob, and well known for it.
One afternoon, when I was sixteen or seventeen, Janalee showed up on my front doorstep. “Hey what are you doing this afternoon?” She asked. I didn’t quite know what to say.
We had never been friends, and she had never spoken kindly to me. I wondered if she was laying a trap for me. “Lets go to Glades for ice cream,” She said. So I went with her. It turned out that she was alone for the weekend. She was an only child, and her parents had gone to visit relatives out of town. I spent the day with Janalee, swimming in the Spanish Fork River and sliding down the bank in the mud. I couldn’t believe that she got so dirty. We actually had fun together.
The last two years of high school, Janalee was on the tennis team with me. I wouldn’t say we ever “hung out” again, but we were amiable acquaintances. I have often thought of my little act of friendship all those years ago and the result that was so long in coming. It took six or seven years for the hostility to turn to tolerance and then to some small form of friendship. The lesson learned has been a valuable one. I have used my mother’s advice every time I have found myself in a social position that was not to my advantage. It has not always worked, but it has made me a better person. I have learned not to allow a bully to make me feel inadequate and small, but to be a bigger person and show them kindness. The affect has been to boost my self-awareness and self-confidence, and see the bully for what they really are; inconsequential.

Young Love

From the balcony next to my bedroom, I have a beautiful view of the wide ravine behind my house. There is a small stream at the bottom of it and one end of the ravine opens up into a state park. Many wild animals enjoy the park and use the stream as a watering hole. Last year a den of coyotes moved in just a few hundred yards from my home.

As the pups from this den began to mature one of them seemed to make friends with the dogs in the surrounding yards. My beagle, Sapphire, was one of them. Every evening the coyote pup would begin its call; “Yip! Yip! Yaooooo!” Whatever Sapphire was doing, she would drop and bolt behind the couch and out her pet-door to the back fence to answer the call with her own hounds howl. The two canines would exchange howls for twenty minutes or so every night. Then, abruptly, the noise would stop, and Sapphire would come back in the house and curl up on the couch. Most of the Spring and Summer evenings were spent the same way, with the two conversing every evening.

Sometime in the early Fall, the young coyote’s visits with Sapphire became fewer and further between. She took to patrolling the fence in the evenings, occasionally being rewarded by the familiar Yip! Yi’! Yaooooo, and the ensuing conversation. But almost always, late at night, we would hear the raucous howling of a large pack. Sapphire, of course, would join in from her place behind the fence, but she wasn’t ever really included. The young coyote had a new group of friends and he was free to roam the wilds with them, pillaging and plundering the local rabbit burrows. Before long, the early evening conversations stopped all together, and only the sounds of the pack could be heard from far away.

One morning, Sapphire and I went out for a walk. I decided to take her through the ravine so she could enjoy sniffing around for small critters. Suddenly, we stood face to face with a young coyote. He slowly backed away, then gave a quick “Yip! Yip! Yahoooo!” and turned and ran up the trail. Sapphire didn’t respond at all. She simply stared after him for a few moments, then turned and walked deliberately in the other direction.

Fear

I recently started going to a writing club. Yes, a bunch of middle aged women get together once a month and draw a topic out of a hat. Then we write a short story about that topic. The story should be an experience from our past so that eventually we will have a collection of stories to pass on to our posterity. I'm not sure if any of my posterity would be interested, but I have enjoyed the group, and listening to their stories. The first topic I wrote on was fear.


This is going to be a piece of cake, I thought, as I stood at the bottom of the pyramid of Kulkulkan, in Chichen Itza staring up at the 91 steps to the top. I had been working out on the stair climber at the gym for many years and I could climb more than 200 flights without a second thought. I was thrilled that I would be able to climb this building without even breaking a sweat.
Kulkulkan is a restored temple ruin in the lost city of Chichen Itza in the Yukatan peninsula. It is in one of the largest ruined cities in Mexico and boasts many buildings that have been restored or partially restored. Two sides of the pyramid shaped building are still in the state they were found in, and the other two sides have been restored. One side has a large thick rope running from the top to the bottom to assist people who are climbing down. Our guide explained that we could ascend the building on the side without the rope, and descend on the rope side.
I turned to my husband, Brian, and said,
“I’ll climb about half-way up and then turn around. You can record it on the video camera. Then follow me up.”
I was eager to start up the steep stairs and prove to myself once again that I was in great shape. I climbed, counting each step as I went. When I reached fifty, I wasn’t even breathing hard, and I wasn’t ready to look back yet, so I decided to keep going until I reached seventy steps.
I realized I was about two-thirds of the way up by then. I was feeling pretty accomplished. I knew I was strong and that, although the steps up the building were steep and narrow, I would easily reach the top without having to catch my breath or wipe sweat from my forehead.
I turned around to wave to Brian and the video camera. But I was completely unprepared for the shock of what happened next. As I turned around, my eyes glanced down, and down, and down! Fear gripped my heart in a way that had me reeling back against the cold stone stairs. Until that very moment, I had not once considered that I had a fear of heights. The angle of the building was a shockingly steep forty-five degrees. It was similar to the angle of a ladder placed at the side of a house. The seventy or so steps that I had climbed were each about eighteen inches high, so I stood more than one hundred feet above the ground.
I molded my body back against the stairs as tightly as I could. My heart pounded so hard I thought it would burst at any moment. I was shaking from head to toe and fighting very hard to keep from sobbing. I was absolutely stuck. I knew I had only two choices. I could either climb back down, or go up to the top. At that moment, I heard another woman’s sobs to my right. She was sitting on a stair a few feet higher than I was and a man was speaking to her soothingly. She edged her feet down to the next stair, then slid her bottom over the edge and carefully lowered herself down another stair. As she reached the next stair down, her voice erupted into another stream of sobs as she clutched desperately to the man next to her.
I could see myself climbing down the same way with one exception. The man that she was clutching so desperately to was not anchored to the wall in any way. How easy would it be for him to slip and take them both down to the bottom in a matter of seconds? I made my decision then to finish climbing to the top, knowing that there was a rope to hold onto on the other side that would assist me in getting back down.
I carefully turned my body back toward the pyramid and finished climbing the last twenty steps. There was a building on the top, and I hastily pressed my back into the corner of the doorway where I allowed the convulsions to take over as I cried. I was still in a predicament. Although out of immediate danger, I knew I still had to climb down. I was alone at the top, and I knew I couldn’t stay there. I bravely looked over the edge, without moving any closer to it and a new wave of nausea and fear overcame me. I could see Brian coming up the stairs, but I was ashamed of the feelings that I couldn’t seem to control. By this time, my breathing was very heavy, and I was sweating profusely. I had wanted so badly to show off the fruits of my labors at the gym, and now my body was betraying me. I decided to sit down where I couldn’t see the steep decline of the building and try to get a hold of myself. I managed to get my breathing under control, but just as I was beginning to calm down, my husband made it to the top and a fresh wave of sobs washed over me.
We stayed on the top of the building for about thirty minutes. I knew I had to get myself back down, and I dreaded the moment I had to step over the edge of the first step. The thick rope was anchored into the first step, so I could not hold on to anything until I was a few steps down. Just like the woman I saw on my way up, I clung desperately to my husband’s body while I eased myself over the first step. As soon as I could get up my nerve, I let go of him, and grasped the thick rope to my left. I remember each step was as bad as the one before, and to add insult to injury, my husband stepped down the building as if he were walking down a flight of stairs. I have never been so relieved to reach solid ground as I was on this day, and I have not felt such terror on any other occasion in my life.