Halfway Down

Halfway Down 

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 it isn't down.

It isn't in the nursery,

It isn't in town.

And all sorts of funny thoughts

Run round my head.

It isn't really

Anywhere!

It's somewhere else

Instead!

by A.A. Milne

***********

I think of this poem almost every time I walk up and down stairs - and have ever since I was a young child. I don't know why this poem made such an impression on me. My childhood home had stairs to the basement but I never remember sitting on them. Our grandparents' homes had stairs; I don't remember pausing on them. Going up the stairs in our North Street home brought this poem to my mind many, many times over the 34 years we lived there. 

The stairs in our Kirkland home have a turn half way up. This midpoint is often bathed in sunlight which makes it an absolutely wonderful place to sit - a place that's "not really anywhere; it's somewhere else instead!"