An Invitation from the Stairs

I was sitting at a table with colleagues at a conference, when one of them asked me what I was enjoying most about the conference center. I didn’t even hesitate and answered, “The stairs.”  I went on to explain that I loved the large, beautiful, open staircases at the conference hotel, which had been built around 1910 and was refurbished in the late 1940's.  I said I loved the way the wide staircases were such an invitation to use the stairs.  We then discussed how none of us had even really looked for the elevators, since the staircases were such a prominent architectural feature.  Now, I have nothing against elevators, and since many of my family members have used wheelchairs, I think they are a necessary part of any public building that has more than one floor.  However, it is unfortunate that somehow, when elevators were added, stairs were hidden – no longer the open invitation they had once been. 

With the invitation these stairs offer, there is no need to look for an elevator. 

There are many invitations in life that we don’t even notice, but that create daily habits.  My colleagues agreed that they had taken way more flights of stairs than normal, simply because of the structure of the building.  A week after I returned from the conference, I was in Bozeman on the MSU campus for a few days.  While I was there, I stopped into Joel Schumacher’s office.  He is an associate specialist in Extension Economics. I told him how much I liked the way that the parking situation on campus invited me to walk everywhere.  Of course, working on campus and dealing with the parking situation daily, he thought I was crazy.  Each day I was on campus I walked from buildings on the south end to buildings on the north end of campus.  It would have been ridiculous to drive, as it would have taken more time circling to find a parking space than it would have taken to walk.  I don’t know for sure, but I suspect I could walk most of main street in Choteau in about the same time and distance as I got across campus, and yet, parking is easy here, crosswalks are not as well marked as on campus, and there aren’t bunches of other people walking; and somehow, I just do not make it a habit to walk to do my errands. 

The stairs in this hotel are so grand and indeed, this flight takes you a half-level to the grand piano and then onto the main lobby.  

4-H BioScience on MSU campus.

This has been an unusual year, as I’ve been on campus nearly once a month since last spring. I’ve been paying attention to how the built environment either invites or discourages us from daily healthy choices.  Joel and I were visiting about how the buildings on campus, built in different eras, reflect not only structural choices, but health choices.  For instance, when I stay in the Hedges dorms (built in 1965), the elevators and stairs are in the same general location, but the stairs are in stair wells.  I think there is a reason they are called wells.  They feel cold, dark and cavernous -- not exactly an invitation.  Joel mentioned that in one of the new buildings on campus (I’ve not been in yet) there is a prominent, open staircase as part of the design. Maybe we have remembered something at the turn of this century that we knew a century ago.   I worked in the courthouse in Sheridan, Wyoming, which was built in 1905. It had a gorgeous oak staircase that summoned me to use it often during the years I was there.

I invite you to start looking for and taking the stairs.   Start walking to do your errands -- just seeing you walking may be enough to encourage others. Start paying attention to your environment and listen to the ways it invites you into your habits.  If you find that the invitation isn’t in favor of your health, refuse the invitation and create a new habit.  Structure your life, so that you are invited to make healthy choices.