The Escalator

Remember the escalator when you were a kid? Dangerous and amazing and mysterious and . . . accessible. Not like the big machines at the construction sites downtown. The massive crane curling steel I-beams like a mechanical muscleman. Or the bulldozer and a dumptruck playing a game of catch with huge boulders. *STAND BACK!* *EXTREME DANGER!* But the escalator was different.

The very nature and purpose of an escalator is accessibility. You would wish so hard with scrunched down eyebrows, pure determination, that your mother would need to go upstairs for the kind of household items that could only be found upstairs. All the useful, boring, grown-up stuff was upstairs. Gently tugging her hand, in the direction of the awesome contraption, you would suggest mundane items that the family may need in order to live everyday life more comfortably: like drapes.


"Mom, do you suppose we might need some drapes?" You would ask innocently.

Well, this morning, lying in bed, not yet fully decided if I was going to continue lying in bed. . I heard windchimes jangling outside.

And I thought: windchimes, to a young wind. . . must be like an escalator to a child.