This morning Jan posted this poem from A.A. Milne:
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
And isn't down.
it isn't in the nursery,
it isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"
— A. A. Milne“Halfway Down,” When We Were Very Young
She also posted these questions:
Thinking of your childhood as a stairway, when did you feel (and how did you feel then)
1. at the bottom?
when boarding the school bus...i dreaded getting on the bus every morning. a boy from down the road would come and wait at my stop with me and the older kids would tease us that we were boyfriend and girlfriend. i hated it, plus it made my stomach drop to find a place to sit down. it was scary and agravating all at once.
2. at the top?
this might sound strange but when i would comfort my dad after my mom left or on those nights that he and my step-mother would have a terrible fight. it made me feel strong to tell him that everything would be alright.
3. halfway?
later when i moved in with my mom and could walk home from school. i loved that. i felt grown up but not so much that i didn't like to stop and do goofy things, or play in the gulley between our house and the neighbor's.
4. At this point in your life, where would you place yourself on your own stairway?
not quite halfway up the stairs? that's hard to assess. after the rigamarole (sp?) this week/the DCOM interview i discovered that i'm further up the stairs than i thought.
5. Identify a place for you that "isn't really anywhere" but "somewhere else instead."
at our house it's called "sitting on the curb." when things get really stressful joel or i will ask if we need to go and sit on the curb. it's a great place for a time-out, to calm down, to assess the situation, to relax a bit, etc. sometimes it's a literal place and others it's not.
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn't any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I'm not at the bottom,
I'm not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
Halfway up the stairs
Isn't up,
And isn't down.
it isn't in the nursery,
it isn't in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
"It isn't really
Anywhere!
It's somewhere else
Instead!"
— A. A. Milne“Halfway Down,” When We Were Very Young
She also posted these questions:
Thinking of your childhood as a stairway, when did you feel (and how did you feel then)
1. at the bottom?
when boarding the school bus...i dreaded getting on the bus every morning. a boy from down the road would come and wait at my stop with me and the older kids would tease us that we were boyfriend and girlfriend. i hated it, plus it made my stomach drop to find a place to sit down. it was scary and agravating all at once.
2. at the top?
this might sound strange but when i would comfort my dad after my mom left or on those nights that he and my step-mother would have a terrible fight. it made me feel strong to tell him that everything would be alright.
3. halfway?
later when i moved in with my mom and could walk home from school. i loved that. i felt grown up but not so much that i didn't like to stop and do goofy things, or play in the gulley between our house and the neighbor's.
4. At this point in your life, where would you place yourself on your own stairway?
not quite halfway up the stairs? that's hard to assess. after the rigamarole (sp?) this week/the DCOM interview i discovered that i'm further up the stairs than i thought.
5. Identify a place for you that "isn't really anywhere" but "somewhere else instead."
at our house it's called "sitting on the curb." when things get really stressful joel or i will ask if we need to go and sit on the curb. it's a great place for a time-out, to calm down, to assess the situation, to relax a bit, etc. sometimes it's a literal place and others it's not.
Comments
Your words created images of your life. How strong you were as a child.
school buses... yuck! ick!