Landings

A friend whose mind dwells largely in the past often talks about the landing on the stairwell in her childhood home.  She gestures to me as if I can see the spot where the first set of stairs stops and the second takes a turn upwards in a new direction.  Every time she describes this scene, I can see and feel the landing in my Aunt Myrtle's house, a place I haven't been in years.

There's something comforting about landings, these spaces betwixt and between.  As a child I snuggled into the farthest corner and sat, hoping to be unobserved.  It was as if no one knew I were there, even though the living room was filled with family.

I think of landings when I read articles about new online courses and the possibility of getting college degrees from home.  There are advantages for sure, and yet I can't help but think that college is a landing for many of us, a place we climb to--and pause--and then journey upwards again.

Our fast-paced, acquisitive culture doesn't allow for many landings.  We're always on the ascent until, like my friend, we're forced into descent.  Maybe this is why the landing is so important to her now.  It's a safe place in her mind, a place where nothing really happened.  How reassuring in its own way.  Nothing--and yet, paradoxically, everything--happening in this simple square partway up the stairs.