Friday Five: Where on the Stairs?

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

Jan of RevGalBlogPals writes...

Thinking of your childhood as a stairway, when did you feel (and how did you feel then)

1. at the bottom?

I felt like there were places to go, people to see and things to do! (Apparently I was one busy child... and yes, God gave us a kid just like me...)

2. at the top?

I felt like I had accomplished something. I also felt like I was in a safe place, since my bedroom was always upstairs.

3. halfway?

There was always a nightlight in the hallway. When we were supposed to be in bed asleep, we would take books and read around it. And when we heard a parent coming to check on us, we'd run back to our beds and pretend to be asleep. I found out years later that they weren't fooled...

4. At this point in your life, where would you place yourself on your own stairway?

I am about two steps from the bottom!!! Graduation is next May. I am praying for where God wants to take me... even though I have to complete 2 classes in summer school, it's really REALLY close to being "done" so I can see the "hallway" and the "front door" and it's pretty cool.

5. Identify a place for you that "isn't really anywhere" but "somewhere else instead."

As a child, I loved to climb trees. Not TOOOoooo high, mind you. But high enough to be off of "terra firma" as Tigger said. Now, it depends on my setting. I can meditate and be "somewhere else." But my favorite place to be somewhere else is the stone labyrinth at the local silent retreat center. It is one of the best "God places" I know. The paths are grassy, with small stones, leaves and twigs scattered through it. And in the silence... I am truly "Somewhere Else Instead."

Deb

---

So they went off together. But wherever they go, and whatever happens to them on the way, in that enchanted place on the top of the Forest a little boy and his Bear will always be playing.

---

THE END