Stairs

Throughout the recent Netflix series “Ripley,” characters are often confronted with stairs. In the first episode, after Tom Ripley arrives on the Amalfi Coast, he makes his way to Dickie Greenleaf’s villa and soon realizes that it’s perched high on a cliff…and therefore only reachable by what seems like endless winding, narrow stairs. In the first episode alone, he climbs this path twice – first just to find the villa, then again after descending to town to fetch his bags, only to schlep them back up the stairs.

While the BBC noted that in the series, stairs are “emblematic of Tom’s constant uphill social and emotional struggle,” I was unable to see the underlying metaphor of the stairs while I watched. I only saw exhausting, leg muscle-cramping nightmares – and I felt, deep in my bones, Tom’s gasping breaths and his “Oh shit” expression when he first realized he was probably only halfway up the path.

We need stairs. They are a part of the landscape of our daily lives. But stairs can be tough, and we know this – stair climber machines are in gyms because it’s hard to walk upstairs constantly without a break. I can’t say that before I was diagnosed with multiple sclerosis I thought much about stairs unless it was a “thing” (for example: a friend’s fifth-floor walkup, the 200-stair trek down to the beach in Positano) and I knew I’d be winded on the other side.

These days, though, living with MS, stairs feel more like a formidable enemy than a necessary part of a building (you can imagine my own “Oh shit” expression soon after my diagnosis, remembering that I live on a third-floor walk-up, with a duplex up where my office is located). Feeling unbalanced, struggling with fatigue, and dealing with tingling and numbness in my legs and feet put stairs in a new light – one that was daunting and overwhelming, leading to struggles beyond just needing to catch my breath.

At first, going down the stairs was scary, because my balance was off – I would get that weird film-style zoom-in when I looked down, cinematic falls flashing through my mind. I would take one step at a time, holding on tight to the railings, going slow. And if I forgot something upstairs, forget it. Soon, it was going up the stairs that became the problem, because especially after a long walk, trekking upstairs with heavy legs took a lot out of me. Those steps to my apartment might as well have been steps to the top of the Eiffel Tower.

I’m unhappy to report that climbing and descending stairs is still an issue, but with physical therapy and strength training, my balance is much better, and my legs are getting stronger. The stairs don’t feel so scary so much as annoying, but I’ll gladly take an elevator if one is available. That said, sometimes, I take the stairs to prove that I can (and maybe that’s my way of saying F-U to my MS).

I still have plans to travel and walk the old, charming staircases in Italy, or Paris, or New Orleans, or Chicago…one step at a time.