tuckova

Every time I got to a staircase on Saturday I couldn't see the stairs.
All I could see is the floor I was on and the floor below that I was
going to and the giant falling place in between, swirling with danger.
I could see myself falling and falling and then at least broken bones, words like crumpled and shattered.
I made a system where I would explain to somebody nearby about the
vertigo, an odd dizzy trepidation, which I have gotten before. Some of
them just put my hand into theirs before I even finished explaining,
and they would take me down the stairs while I stared at their
shoulders or some other vague horizon and chanted don't look! down! in
the rhythm of the descent. Squire took me downstairs, and my first boss
when I moved here, and a doctor I knew for a while. Strangers, too. So many kind
people, so much sweetness. It's embarrassing to have to keep telling
people that there are some things you can't do. I can't go down stairs.
The amount that it is embarrassing to tell is the same amount that it
is liberating to say out loud, and I had to learn every time, and there
were so many stairs.

Finally I was sitting at the top of the flight, above the stairs I
couldn't bring into focus, waiting for somebody friendly to come along
and hold my hand. Squire's most amazing babysitter, who is now a most
amazing woman, came and sat down next to me as I finished my cigarette.
I started to tell her how I couldn't see the stairs, how I needed help.
And she said, you know, the stairs in this building all recede when
they're not being used: you have to push a button to make the stairs
come out. You probably just hadn't noticed because you'd been afraid to
look. And she pushed it, and I looked down for the first time, really
looked, and watched the stairs unfold below me. And then we walked down
the stairs, and I laughed, brave and giddy.

Dear brain, I wish you would let me sleep past 4 a.m., but I thank you
for waking me up laughing. And for giving me the best metaphors, all
the time.