Having Favorite Staircases
A building can have six stairwells and only one staircase.
The difference becomes obvious the second you’re using it.
Most routes upward feel like somebody lost an argument with a fire code.
A staircase feels intentional.
The turns come at just the right moment. One long uninterrupted flight always feels slightly accusatory, as though the building expects more from you than you’re prepared to give.
A good staircase relents before that feeling fully develops. It offers a landing, allows a brief recovery of dignity, then continues upward.
The best ones disappear while you’re on them.
Then, years later, a building from the ’90s drifts into memory with almost nothing left except a route.
Past the library. Up one flight. Right at the window.
The window wasn’t remarkable. If you’d photographed it, nobody would’ve looked twice. Yet memory remains convinced it produced the finest rectangle of afternoon light ever achieved by glass.
The third landing was always colder than the rest.
Just enough to make you wonder whether there was a hidden vent nearby or some peculiar pocket of air trapped in the wall.
Near the top sat a corner with an unwritten speed limit. Traffic slowed there automatically. No discussion. No signage. We behaved as though the staircase had made a polite request.
Enter through the wrong door and the building felt unfamiliar.
Like seeing a dog on a bus.
The staircase had a habit of stretching short encounters into longer ones.
You’d pass a classmate partway up, exchange a quick hello, and by the next floor know far more than intended about their roommate, their schedule, a campus controversy, and whatever was currently going wrong in their life.
Goodbyes regularly required multiple landings.
A week before finals, every platform filled with students hauling too many books and speaking in the careful tones of people operating on three hours of sleep.
The route had its own cast of regulars.
One guy spent three semesters leaning against the same section of wall as though he’d signed a lease for it.
A couple seemed committed to completing the world’s longest breakup in installments between floors.
The window continued attracting far more attention than its view could reasonably justify.
Then it was time for finals; the staircase filled with enough paper to alter local wind patterns.
A few months later, the entire cast vanished and another took its place. They made all the same turns.
Past the library. Up one flight. Right at the window.
Rooms changed names. Departments relocated. Fresh signage surfaced and behaved with unwarranted authority.
The route didn’t seem to care.
For some reason, I can still picture it perfectly.
Cool air on the third landing.
Sunlight on the wall.
A corner near the top where, for reasons nobody ever examined too closely, traffic always slowed.
— Autistic Ang
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Adult Autism 101
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There was a quiet staircase with a window inside a historic academic building where I would go to escape roommates and dormitory dramas to do my homework. Funny thing, this building was connected to my dorm, and it was a little-known fact among many of my dorm mates that we had access to it. I, being a constant night-owl explorer for quiet spaces, discovered it and kept it my secret. I would curl up on the windowsill and study more effectively than in the library, where socializing took precedence over studying. One Sunday evening, I was curled up there, reading about Autism (for the first time) in my Child Psychology textbook, when a Security Officer on his nightly rounds came up the stairs. He was startled to see me there and asked me questions. Once I explained why I was there for peace to study, he was kind enough to leave me be as I promised not to tell a soul about my secret hiding place. I wrote a paper about Autism and got an A. I also included a poem titled "White," which years later became the inspiration for my novel, "The Fractured Hues of White Light," about Samantha Ryder, an autistic artist who began to whisper her story to me all those years ago. I still think about that windowsill in that quiet staircase, and the slow-growing epiphany of why I am the way I am.
This one is particularly funny to me because I used to be a --- wait for it ---- Competitive Stair Climber. Yes, that's actually a thing. There is even a point system and a National Championship. I finished top 10 twice, 7th once, and 9th another time. I've raced up some of the tallest buildings in the country. Empire State Building, Sears (Willis) Tower in Chicago, US Bank in Los Angeles and my favorite is the Stratosphere in Vegas. I hope this makes you laugh, because it's all still kind of funny to me, anyway. :)