Stairway

I have began working in a new place with very young children who are said to have communication difficulties. I climb many many stairs with them from the ground floor level up into the skies where the metallic staircase actually flips to the outside of the building and becomes nothing much more than a slightly more ornate fire escape with railings and wooden slats to stop either therapist or child from taking a sky-dive.  There are added elements apart from the sheer excess of energy for very tiny bodies who at some point either earlier or later I will usually need to hoist  into my arms and make the final laps as one condensed body hip to hip. There are the elements of rain, sunshine, wind and the pervading sounds of the voices and traffic from way down below along the busy Euston Rd. The children begin to brighten and even their body mass becomes lighter and more buoyont on about the third lap of landings. They sense the spaciousness of unconstrained air that plays freely over their skin and the light becomes a tactile stroking of faint warmth in the early Autumn. The wind pushes us gently from behind or creates a buffer through which we plough forward by descending our weight in the lower body and pressing into the rivetted and patterned metal steps  immersing ourselves more only to be levitated out with chest widening. But as fatigue sets in this bounce outwards becomes saturated like wet cloth and each step seems to pull us back down and into its level surface as if we might slip through it. The rain is the best, dropping lightly like a mist or in heavy globules from high up above us. It invigorates and we lean into it madly tasting it through our pores and through open mouth. Eyes and ears are also more widely open and the many reflectivee surfaces of windows, metallic vents and chimneys draws the child upwards and outwards until they are tasting the view and smilingly sounding out this circulation of space. Finally we get to the therapy room, a converted office space..and it is nearly time to go down.