Topic 159: Watch your step!

Carol:

Le Diable Et Le Bon Dieu

I realized this morning that regular readers of our daily theme essays may by now have gotten a skewed impression of me because I use self-deprecating anecdotes to get a laugh (or at least a faint smile). I may give the impression that I am a simpering, idealistic, weepy, food-stained, wispy-haired reality and crime TV addict who is obsessed with genealogy and dogs. Please… that’s only 80% of who I really am. The other 20% is an eclectic intellect who used to be able to read French plays by Sartre in the original language, knows the route from Haworth town centre to the Bronte Parsonage (make sure you follow that little lane to the left) and has cultivated a lifelong interest in architecture. Let me illustrate.

I had a devil of a time finding my way around the Winchester Mansion “Mystery House” in San Jose, California. Not because I lack a sense of direction, but because the Winchester House itself lacks a plan... deliberately, so the story goes. Take a tour of the 160-room mansion with its 367 steps, stairways to nowhere (certainly not to heaven), and you will hear the story of distraught widow Sarah Winchester. Sarah sought the counsel of a Medium after the death of her only child. Her husband William Wirt Winchester had left her 50% of his holdings in the family business, i.e. the company that manufactured “the gun that won the West.” The Medium, so they say, warned her that the Winchester family was cursed by the spirits of the people killed by their guns, so in an effort to elude the ghosts Sarah kept adding on to her California mansion for 38 years, building trick doors and windows and a maze of rooms that even the servants couldn’t navigate without a map. Or, a less romantic story is that she designed the mansion herself instead of hiring a good architect and just didn’t have a strong aesthetic (source: Sarah Winchester).
 

Thank God, I was also able to travel to Spain to see an architectural marvel in mid-construction in 1969. A college friend and I arrived in Barcelona on Christmas Day and headed straight for the Basilica Temple Expiatori de la Sagrada Familia, that wonder- in- progress of Catalan architect Antoni Gaudi. Construction on this monument to religious faith began two years before construction on the Winchester Mansion began, and the current goal is to complete the Basilica by 2026, the centennial of its chief architect Gaudi’s death.  Although its spires rise straight up to the heavens and can be seen from all over the city, it only has 350 steps, 17 less than the Winchester mansion.  By the time I had reached the top of the building, my legs were shaking uncontrollably from the steep climb even though I was only 20 years old at the time (source: Sagrada Familia).
 

Both the Winchester Mansion and the Sagrada Familia have prompted controversy over excesses of decoration, expense of construction, and delays in completion. Sarah Winchester attempted to expiate family sins and elude Le Diable by constructing a wood and brick, hide-and-seek touristic curiosity. Gaudi took the plans of an earlier architect to build a tradition church and transformed them into a grand and completely unique structure to exalt Le Bon Dieu.
 

If all you want is a good set of stairs to challenge your lungs and leg muscles, I suggest  the Washington monument in our national’s capitol, dedicated on Washington’s birthday in 1885. The tallest stone structure in the world, in the six months after the dedication,   over 10,000 visitors climb its 897 stairs to the top. (source Washington Monument).
 

Whatever your architectural destination, a bit of advice:

   

Sources:
Image of the Sagrada Familia Basilica. Bernard Gagnon. 
20 Sep 2009.     
Sagrada Familia.
Sara Winchester.
Washington Monument.

Megan:

Watch your step!

The main floor of our house is mostly open plan, but between the foyer and the living room, there is a single step down.* After 28 years living in this house, we don’t even think about it, which is why we never remember to warn our visitors. Whoops, we say too late. There’s a step there.

If we’re used to that one it’s only because we’ve all had fallen on every other staircase in the house. I’ve already documented the time I tried somersaulting down the stairs . The parents have tripped many times carrying loads of laundry, and when my brother was a baby, he fell off the first tier of the basement stairs (which at that point had no railing) and bit through his lip. When I did gymnastics, I used to practice handstands as I made my way up the stairs. That sounds more dangerous than it was. Since I wasn’t very good, I mostly just kicked and flailed my legs behind me – one time kicking a parent in the face.

When my parents bought this house, it wasn’t finished. The wrap around deck didn’t fully wrap around, and for most of my childhood we had two doors we weren’t allowed to open – one off the kitchen, and one off my parents room. The fall probably wouldn’t have killed us, but broken limbs were certain. After the rotted front staircase gave way on my mother one morning, I remember crawling over her as she lay in the gap where the step used to be, and ordered me to go back into the house to give my father a message.  The new deck wrapped fully around and my parents had a balcony to themselves. That was at least 15 years ago, and we still rarely use those doors.

Off of the kitchen, we now have a staircase that is so steep it requires intense concentration to descend, even for the dogs. Milo’s okay but Bella won’t go down them after dark, instead doing her business at the top of the stairs much to everyone’s annoyance. I could probably train her by walking down with her, but the truth is, I don’t like those stairs in the dark either.

Stairs have been my nemesis for as long as I can remember. I wrote a short-story while I was in college about someone who lives alone, falls down the stairs and lays undiscovered for weeks, eaten alive by a cat. It was a lot funnier than it sounds. It was also meant to be a metaphor about relationships, but all the examples of falling down staircases were taken directly from my own experience: at the courthouse after paying a parking ticket, at the church when my shoes fell off and clattered down the steps beside me, and all the times in my house. I was grateful that when I finally did live by myself, in England, I lived in a ground floor flat with no stairs. I fell numerous times in the prison, but always on my own with only the cameras to witness.

I don’t mind falling on stairs. I have enough experience now to fall correctly and minimize injury. It’s always better to fall up. I just get so embarrassed when someone sees me, especially because they always act so concerned. I’d rather they just laugh at me the way my mother does.


*From the living room to the foyer, there is a step up.