I’ve been thinking about my favorite book of poetry as a child: A.A. Milne’s When We Were Four. My favorite poem hints at my love of fantasy:
Halfway Down
Halfway down the stairs
Is a stair
Where I sit.
There isn’t any
Other stair
Quite like
It.
I’m not at the bottom,
I’m not at the top;
So this is the stair
Where
I always
Stop.
…
Halfway up the stairs
Isn’t up,
And isn’t down
It isn’t in the nursery,
It isn’t in the town.
And all sorts of funny thoughts
Run round my head:
“It isn’t really
Anywhere!
It’s somewhere else
Instead!”
I remember sitting halfway down the stairs, just like the child in the picture, pondering this, and finding the idea of being somewhere else instead totally delicious.
Maureen