Tall Tale

I am a tall woman. Actually, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. I am a very tall woman. Folks often stop chatting when I walk into a room. I get the head-foot-head scan. That’s when they look at how high my head is in the air, then check my feet for high heels, then check my head again to be sure it really is way up there. The scan takes only seconds, but it can be a bit longer for normal conversations to resume. For the longest time I wouldn’t cut my hair short for fear that people would think I am a cross-dresser, as if that really mattered. It’s been a long road to reconciliation with my height, but I think I’m nearly there.
Body image is a big marketing tool. We all want to look a certain way. We can predict that the desired look consists of anything other than how we already look. We apply our discontented thinking to all features possible on the human form, hair curliness or color, height, weight, features, figures, even hands and feet. To compare and covet (or strut) is a natural human process. It can also get quite out of hand.
Better yet is a delight in our differences. If this sounds like celebrating diversity and you want to run screaming, calm down. I’m talking about delighting in how I am different from you; how being tall can be fun and not just shocking. I’m talking about whatever differences you possess being your special possessions for the period of time that you wear your body.
“How did you get that tall?” People will sometimes ask me. I have a stock pile of responses, but some of my favorites include, “Well, I was born six foot and then grew two inches.” Or how about, “I drank lots and lots of water.” Now really, how on earth am I going to know how I got to be this tall? All I know is that I stood in the back row of all my school pictures, but I wasn’t that much taller than everyone else. Then, they all stopped growing and I just kept on. My late growth process may account for my uncharacteristically straight posture. I don’t feel a need to slouch just because nearly everyone else is shorter than I. What a silly notion that one is. That’s like short people thinking they need to go everywhere on tiptoe.
Tall women who are much older than I often comment on how nice it is to see that women are getting taller. I can’t help but wonder what the population will look like if I’m saying that to a taller young woman when I get older. Wow. Watch out Barbie.
The basketball question is by far the most irksome, mostly because it goaded me into trying to play basketball. In high school, the coaches looked at me with a dreamy glow until I joined the team. Shortly thereafter, I think I caught one crying. I’d never had to jump for anything in my life, so new muscles had to be developed. Long after everyone else had gone home from practice, I stayed in the gym jumping to try to touch the bottom of the backboard. Jumping was as foreign a concept to me as was using a ladder for reaching anything other than the roof. The top of the roof.
Inevitably, very short women and I end up in height conversations as well. We compare the relative shortcomings and benefits of our builds, and usually close the conversation with my promise to share some leg with the lady if God ever decides to stop messing around and distribute height more evenly. I’ve made that promise so often that I will someday be one inch tall.
A tall friend of mine told me he was going to start wearing a badge that read “6’7” No Fine” for how tall he is, if he plays basketball, and how the weather is up here. My favorite response to the rude question of how the weather is up here is to spit on the person and tell him its raining. I haven’t yet gotten up the nerve.
I hear people reporting that they get shorter as they age. At last, I have found a reason to look forward to getting old. Even then, I am what I am. You see, all my buddies will have gotten shorter as well.