One troubled child and some staircases

During class today, I have to admit that I got really freaked out. I mean, there normally tends to be a certain uneasiness or confusion that overtakes you the second you walk into class anyway, but yesterday was a little different.

It all happened when we began talking about stair counting. Yes. Stair counting. Now I don’t know if this particular subject has ever driven someone to such a panic stricken blogging state as it has me, but that is hardly the matter at hand here. I really can’t worry about such trivialities. Let’s get on with it.

I went through a phase when I was younger, lets say around my 10th or 11th year, when all I wanted to do was count…everything. Windows, light fixtures, floor tiles, cans of food, moles (the bodily kind), traffic signs, the number of times my little brother wore the same shorts in a single week (I won’t relay those results, they’re fairly horrifying)…nothing escaped the ferocity of my counting. But my favorite of all were stairs. I cannot explain exactly why or how this came about, all I know is that whenever I came within sight of a lone staircase, beckoning to be counted, my heart jumped with excitement and anticipation. How many flights would it be this time? How fast could I steppy-step up them? Could my counting keep up with my adrenaline powered legs? Or after tripping and doing a miscount would I be forced to take that humiliating jog back to the bottom and start all over again? Sometimes, even, I would project a guess of how many stairs I believed there were, and play a game with myself to see how close I could get to the actual number.

For me, there was a feeling of triumph in this habit. Like it was Shelby vs. The Staircase, and in mounting those steps and counting every last one of them, I’d come out on top (well, literally). It was no matter that stairs are inanimate, holding absolutely no capacity for feeling, whether it be defeat or provocation. No matter that my obsession was in all likelihood a mild case of OCD. What I was doing was important. And it gave me, more than anything else that comes to mind, the greatest sense of satisfaction and fulfillment.

One thing, however, prevented me indefinitely from achieving the pinnacle of satisfaction in this effort…the interminable question of whether or not to count the base and the landing. As you’re running towards the staircase (or in the case of someone less neurotic, gradually pacing towards it), do you start counting “One” as your foot hits the floor right before you begin the ascent? My thinking always was that, you did not count base, for the simple fact that it was not part of the staircase itself. If it were part of the staircase, that would’ve meant that in my successive steps up to the point when I actually lifted my foot to land on a higher platform, I would’ve been on the staircase all along. And if that were the case, where did the real beginning begin? This was obviously too complicated and fruitless a concept to lend any more of my attention, so I resolved to never, in fact, count the base before the first step.

The landing, however, was not so cut and dry. I tended to count it, although every time I found myself nearing the top of the abominable staircase, a little sweat broke out across my forehead and a tinge of panic struck my heart. “Do I count it?” I’d ask myself. And with this preoccupation it’s important to note that I often forgot the current task at hand, and fudged the number of “actual” stairs, so that I’d have to go all the way back down and start again—the whole time the prospect of the landing looming over me like a dark, jeering cloud. So up again I’d go, steppy-stepping up the incline, with my arms pumping in perfect time, keeping my eyes lowered to no more than a step or two ahead of me. And with this focus, before I knew it, I’d reach the top. And not looking up to gauge my progress, I’d usually reach the landing, count it, and realize that I’d made it and no more steps remained.

At that point, it was only natural to stick with the number I’d counted, trust in some unexplored logic that since I’d counted the top as I landed on it, it must have necessitated counting, therefore making it a stair, and move on to bigger and better things—a.k.a more stairs.

I must say that at the time this all was happening, I surely spent no more than a brief moment in this state of unrest with the question of the base and the landing, and that 99% of my time was occupied with giddy excitement and a long-gone fascination with math and counting. But nevertheless, that slight anxiety still existed, and hearing it mentioned in class brought up long repressed memories of my battles with the stairs and all the mixed emotions that ensued. You then can understand my amazement and yet horror, in realizing that I am not the only unfortunate being to have dealt with this dilemma. And more horrifying even than that, is the fact that I have shared this experience with Mr.Beckett himself…the extent to which I identify with this man is unnerving me more and more…