I’ve been sitting here half the day trying to think of how I can squeeze an entire column out of my stairs. That’s right, stairs. Steps. Vertical risers. Flights of fancy. Run and rise. Up. Down. Up again. Stairs.

As a man with a nauseous disregard for elevators and a frequent need to change elevation, I have always been partial to stairs. I find them nearly as functional as floors and walls, and twice as fun besides. I’ve never climbed the pyramids at Chichen Itza, but I have known and loved some great stairs in my time.

There were the broad green wonders of my childhood home, warm and welcoming. There were the grand stone steps that led to my college library, cool and dignified. And who can forget the rusty rickety planks that climbed my favorite hilltop fire towers, giving me an air-cooled view of the countryside?

Good flights, all, but my favorite stairs at the moment are the ones in the back of my house, connecting my first floor to my second. I trot up and down them many times a day, and I am amazed at how delighted I am every time. I like to bound up ’em, two at a time, reaching the top with enough momentum to send me scampering into the next room. Heading down, I like to take them one-by-one, at a pace somewhere between a slow jig and a fast plop, my muscle memory well-attuned to their pitch and depth, my belly jiggling with a shade of small glee, my feet as nimble as they ever are in this, my fourth decade of life.

My basement stairs offer no such satisfaction: bound up and down too quickly and I’m likely to hit my head on a crossbeam and hurtle headlong into a wall of canned tomatoes, greasy grill brushes, and our ever-growing collection of misshapen Swiffers. Heading down the basement stairs, I have to be vigilant. Not so with the flight going upstairs.

They are a joy.

There are not too many things that put a bounce in my step — a chuckle from my kids, a good cantaloupe, a shot of Stax/Volt soul — and to this list you can add my favorite stairs. I realize that the bounce in my step is obligatory — how else would I get my feet high enough to hit the next tread? — but that physical necessity soon translates to the metaphysical, as the act of trotting up and down becomes not a chore but a small act of exuberance. Many days it is the most playful thing I do.

Up. Down. Up again.

Stairs.

(Jay Hardwig is a writer and teacher. He can be reached at smardwig@charter.net)