Friday Five: Where on the Stairs?

For this week's Friday Five, Jan uses A.A. Milne's poem, "Halfway Down" (from When We Were Very Young). I think he should have entitled it "Halfway Up", but I digress.




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!"

(Here's the youtube link of Robin the Frog singing it on the Muppet Show.)


And here's the prompt:
Thinking of your childhood as a stairway, when did you feel (and how did you feel):

1. at the bottom?
A low point on the stairs was when my grandpa died unexpectedly of a heart attack at age 65. He was such a great guy with a positive outlook on life, and everyone seemed to love him. (His service was held in the high school gymnasium and it was totally full!)

2. at the top?
Ah, I'd have to go with the carefree summer of '72 -- lots of time spent at the lake with friends, etc.

3. halfway?
Hmm... I guess I view the staircase as a 'road' of sorts (and I'm obviously 'into' roads!), so most of my childhood (and life in general) would be 'halfway' -- with part of the journey behind me and part of the journey ahead. And of course, there's the good and the not-so-good along the way.

4. At this point in your life, where would you place yourself on your own stairway?
See #3! I'm just happy climbing the stairs / heading down the road!

5. Identify a place for you that "isn't really anywhere" but "somewhere else instead."
This would have to be when I'm reading a novel. For example, I just finished The Help (on my Kindle) by Kathryn Stockett. It transported me to the South in 1962. (If anyone is looking for a good read, I'd recommend it!)