Stepping up and a contest not to miss

Some journeys are daunting. The climb into the unknown can be scary. Where are you going? Do you know what you're doing? Is there an abyss ahead?

I started photographing stairs just because they were there and intrigued me, but I've been thinking there's a metaphor that fits writing.

In The Grapes of Wrath, John Steinbeck wrote: "Man, unlike anything organic or inorganic in the universe, grows beyond the work, walks up the stairs of his concepts, emerges ahead of his accomplishments."

What does that mean? Do our dreams precede us or overtake us? If we didn't dream, we'd have no hopes or goals. Dreams are necessary, and so is the hard work that can make them real.

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A fellow writer and blogger, Sarah Wylie at Sarah With a Chance, made her dream real. Her debut novel, All These Lives, will be published by FSG/Macmillan. To celebrate, she is holding the most awesome contest. If you don't follow her, this is a chance to win a super prize and read one of the funniest, most talented bloggers around.

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Back to musing. Since this is still National Poetry Month, I'm tossing a couple of haiku in this post, too.

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the ancient stone steps

tell no tales, give few clues of

who ventured this way

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Alice in Alice's Adventures in Wonderland said, after she fell down the rabbit hole, that now she would think nothing of falling down the stairs.

Fear of the unknown is often worse than the actuality. If we don't create due to fear of falling, of failing, we never will go anywhere. I want to go, really I do.

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I was out for a walk when I passed a house overgrown with feral grasses and dandelions. The rose bushes could barely be seen. I thought it was a shame the homeowner had neglected the garden. And then I saw him. A very old man, wearing a faded plaid flannel shirt, scraping his walker along the edge of the garden, stooping slowly to grab a weed and pull. I felt like crying then and saw his world with different eyes. With small, painful steps, he was fighting the odds.

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What is stopping you? What is halting me?

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twisting, timbered stairs

keep me climbing just to see

what might wait beyond

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One step at a time.

Into the mystery.

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(Disclaimer: No, I didn't trespass beyond the "private" sign. I'm using my poetic license, which I have around here somewhere.)