Stairs

While on a ten-hour land trip to Cagayan, it suddenly dawned on me that a lot of Filipino houses are bungalow-type, if not completely a one room affair. Of course, this excludes the happy rich who can have as much as three or seventeen floors in their homes. Majority are low houses, and this strikes me as odd because I have lived my life in a strictly two-floor house awareness.

There’s a commercial on TV which shows a kid marveling at a house and saying. “Ay, up and down.” I have no idea if that was supposed to be flattering or an incredulous remark. Thing is, I don’t think I would be ale to live in a house without stairs.

Stairs are vehicles, you see, to two utterly different places occupying the same ground area. In our house, the upstairs rooms are all very private. It serves as our sanctuary. I cannot count how many times I have hidden from visitors upstairs. And some times, when I really am curious about our guests but would not like to be seen, I would sit at the topmost step and listen in on all the conversations downstairs.

Convenient, these stairs. I am fascinated by them.
Maybe I have built my psyche that way too. There’s downstairs in my mind, accessible to all. But upstairs, it’s all me. I don’t think anyone has seen it yet.