My Thinking Spot*

I do my best thinking sitting at the top of the stairs.

There are far better options nearby in terms of comfort or solitude, but there’s just something about this perch that has always called to me… in every house I’ve ever lived in.

There was a landing two steps down at my childhood home in South Porcupine. It was the perfect nook to read or think if I wanted to escape the happy chaos of the living room below.

At my Grandmother’s home in Timmins, it was the perfect spot to hear what was going on downstairs before joining the melee. As family came and went through the house, I could hear the quiet dim of the TV mingled with laughter and the clanging of pots from the kitchen.

At the first home M and I lived in, the top of the stairs became my refuge at night as I waited to see if the babies were asleep before crawling into bed. I spent so many hours sitting in the quiet darkness of the hallway, with the glow of the bathroom nightlight washing over me. It was almost a halfway point from the kids rooms to mine– a stopping place before finally getting to sleep.

And here, in our new home, it’s often where I find myself. Once the children are asleep tucked away in their rooms, I seem to stop here, not quite ready to shift from one roll to the next. It’s like my in between place. When I sit here no one knows I’m here, and for a brief moment in time, no one needs me. My body and my brain are mine, if only for a moment.

It’s where I do my best thinking.

It’s usually where I do my writing.

I haven’t been stopping on the stairs much lately. Writing is such a funny thing. Sometimes I feel so inspired by everything around me and it takes everything in me not to write 17 posts a day to share all my thoughts with you. My writing feels purposeful. Meaningful.

On other days, I am critical and feel that nothing I can write is of worth. That this is just a silly hobby. That it’s just more noise in the void that is social media.

…but then often something comes to remind me that there’s nothing wrong with a little noise sometimes. Someone will send me an unexpected message or comment about something I’ve written that they’ve connected to.

Those comments mean the world to me. I got one this week. My September funk has been harder to shake than usual, and I’ve just felt so uninspired.

Then, I received a comment from a friend of a friend, someone I’ve never met. It was lovely… and gave me the little push I needed to keep going. In telling me that my words have touched her, her words touched me.

It was enough to make me stop at the top of my stairs tonight.

So, as I sit in the quiet semi-darkness at the top of my stairs with four sleeping babies behind three closed doors, I just wanted to say… thank you.

On the weekend of thanks, I’m grateful to you. I’m grateful that you’re here. I’m grateful for this beautiful, supportive community that we’ve built. I’m grateful for your enduring kindness and support, and for the comments and messages that always seem to come when I need them most.

P.s. I’ve been sitting here too long and can’t feel my bum. The end.