Field Day and Spelling Bees

Once a year, the grass fields behind Windsor Elementary were transformed. Anticipation had been building for weeks in preparation for this. What was once one large grassy field was now roped off into smaller fields of play. Signs identified which games were to be played where. Flags marked the starting lines, banners marked the finish. Field day was upon us. 

We’ve been training for this all our lives it seemed. My mother, the competitive one in the family always requests field day off from work. She was dressed for high performance- more like an athlete than a chaperone. Today is the day. 

We’re all thinking it, but nobody’s saying it. Today is the day Tianna brings honor to us all. Like Mulan, preparing to meet the matchmaker my mother prepares me for my day of physicality. My hair pulled back and gelled down for maximum aerodynamics. New laces in my shoes. An extra helping of maple and brown sugar oatmeal at breakfast, additional fuel and snacks in my bagged lunch. 

I’m proud walking into school with my mother, like a pilot and her co-pilot making the dramatic slow motion walk to their plane that sits alone on the tarmac. We’ve come to take over, and I’ve come to bring honor to us all.

We’ve been here before. This moment. But that time was for the school spelling bee. I beat my very popular, very well off classmate for the trophy. 

The night before the spelling bee we sat at the dinner table while my mom went over the most commonly misspelled words.

“Beautiful” she says. I spell it correctly.

“Interrupt” she continues. I spell it correctly.

“Necessary” she adds. I spell it incorrectly. 

She gently sets her fork on her plate. “Okay,” she says. “Adults get this wrong too…necessary is n-e-c-e-S-S-a-r-y. The first s sound is actually a c and the second s sound is actually TWO s’s”

Got it. Our spelling bee wasn’t open to parents. But I was nervous nonetheless sitting in my chair in front of the student body. Down to the last two spellers I waited as my opponent stood to receive her word.

“Necessary” the moderator says. I sit up taller in my chair. NO WAY! I’m thinking, I know this word! I know this word!

She spells it wrong. As per the rules of our Bee I have to spell this word correctly and an additional word to win it all. I stand.

“N-E-C-E-S-S-A-R-Y. Necessary.”

“Correct” the moderator confirms.

I have all the swagger of someone who had been spelling “necessary” correctly for years. I pull myself back together, I’ve got to spell one more word correctly.

“Amphibian” the moderator reads to me off of her printed notecard.

I all but deteriorate into a fit of giggles because I know this word too. And not only do I know it, I really know it. And the reason I know it is because just the day before when the Scholastic Book Reader orders were delivered to our respective cubby holes I stole one.

Yes, Tianna the book thief.

And the book I thieved just so happened to be about reptiles and amphibians. And the person I stole it from was sitting across from me about to lose this spelling bee. And even though her book was already residing back in her cubby, me reading those pages after dinner, before bed under my Little Mermaid comforter by flashlight the night before sealed her defeat. All of my years of reading and writing on a high level and my victory was assured by the previous twenty-four hours. I didn’t need to be an honors student to understand the importance of preparation.

They allowed me to call my mom from the principal’s office to let her know I won. After whooping and hollering she asked me who I beat. It’s not that she didn’t understand that I beat EVERYBODY. She wanted a replay of the final blow, the moment of victory- to visualize my opponent recognizing their defeat and being helpless in the face of it. I hung up the phone beaming with pride, and continued on with my school day as if floating on air.

During the last period of the day, as we all worked quietly at our desks we heard a knock. The teacher answered the door, a smile growing across her face as she stepped back. Nosey, we were all straining our necks to see the door which was positioned behind freestanding chalkboards.

A huge bouquet of balloons filed into the room before the human carrying them did. Brightly colored with “congratulations!” and “You did it!” splashed across their mylar surfaces. A beautiful glass vase of yellow carnations and baby breath flowers served as the anchor weight for the the half-dozen helium balloons. 

The teacher points in my direction and the man delivers what I now understand are my flowers and my balloons right to my desk. I open the card, “Way to go! I am so proud of you” it says in my mother’s perfect handwriting.

So here I am. 

Another opportunity on this field day to feel that sense of accomplishment to marinate in that particular flavor of pride, to bask in the rays of familial glory. I think it’s why my mom volunteers for such an event, to experience what we feel in real time, to not have to depend on a child’s inaptitude to tell a story or relay the drama, build the anticipation and deliver the climax.

I’m at the HIGH WATER/LOW WATER station. This is a game I had never heard of. It required two people to hold an outstretched jump rope at each end. Students would form a single file line and the holders would either raise the rope (for high water) or lower it (low water) and you had to jump over the rope at whatever height it was set to. The last person standing wins.

I come alive while lining up behind my classmates caught between wanting the ease of low water and the challenge of high water. My heart catches for a beat as I move to the front of the line, the space between beats shortening as I look from one rope holder to the other to ascertain any clue as to whether the rope will rise up, or fall down. 

There are a lot of us playing, but my classmates begin to drop like flies. The rope holders have been relieved by their substitutes. It’s down to me and another boy. It didn’t occur to me that the game wasn’t fair, that the rope holders can decide who wins simply by choosing to lower or raise the height based on who’s up next. My childish innocence didn’t allow me to think abut the game being rigged.

The boy cleared the rope. There are a lot of cheers. This game has gone for so long nearly the entire school is lined up along either side of our makeshift runway. If I clear this rope I win. I’d be the champion of field day.

I watch the rope holders raise the rope and stop. Manageable I think to myself, that is until they raise it again. It now appears like the rope is at my eye level. Hmmm. Less manageable. I thought to myself, but not impossible. Maybe.

I eyeball the rope and slowly begin to back up. Somehow understanding that the farther my run into the rope was the better chance I had at clearing it. I back up to what felt like half the field away, the rope barely visible to my eye. I begin to run, each step getting faster and faster. Fists balled tighter and tighter as I prepared to launch myself over the rope.

I plant my foot into the ground to take off. A hush falls over the previously cheering crowd. I can feel my opposite knee trying to rise high to help me gain clearance. 

I take off.

I see the rope and I’m wondering how it is that I’m able to see it from this vantage point. Rope against sky. I turn my head, and as I do it becomes clear that I have this view because I am on my back. I can see the legs of each rope holder as I turn my head from side to side.

The crowd rushes in…the teachers push them back. I hear disembodied voices ask me if I’m okay. I move a leg, and a shoe now covered in mud. We had taken so many jumps from the same spot we created a muddy and now slippery indent in the grass. The speed and aggression with which I attempted to take the leap created the perfect conditions for me to end up flat on my back.

I’m helped to my feet slowly. Classmates approaching me brushing dirt off my clothes and picking grass out of my hair. “You really went for it!” One of them says. “That was awesome!” Says another.

Yea, it was. I thought to myself. I may not have brought home the blue ribbon in that event. But I was now in possession of something else entirely: the honor of failing valiantly and the pride of having the scars to prove it.