Cleaning The Stairs

This afternoon I found myself on my hands and knees with a bucket of warm water, slowly wiping years of paint dust and sheetrock grit off the front staircase at Pauline Manor. The light from the foyer windows hit the wood just right, catching every scratch and swirl in the grain. The boards are worn smooth from more than a century of footsteps, but they still creak like they’re remembering each one.

Somewhere between the second and third step, it hit me that I’m not the first woman to do this. Over the 115 years that Pauline Manor has stood here, there have been others kneeling in this same spot, scrubbing these same steps, each with her own life unfolding upstairs. Maybe one was cleaning before company came, another just trying to wash away the chaos of children or grief or dust that never ends. Each mark on this staircase belongs to someone who loved this home enough to care for it with her own two hands.

I think about how the house has changed, but also how it hasn’t. The same sunlight pours through the stained glass, the same smell of old pine lingers in the hallway, and I imagine the same quiet satisfaction when the cloth turns from gray to clean. There’s something humbling about knowing you’re part of a story that started long before you and will continue long after.

Someday I’ll sand this stairwell down and bring out the depth of that wood again. I’ll re-stain and reseal it so it shines the way it was meant to. But not yet. Right now, the scratches tell the truth of its years, and I’m in no hurry to erase that history. So I’ll keep gently cleaning each step, whispering a quiet thank you to the women who came before me, and feeling grateful that I get to leave my own fingerprints here too.

Every house has a soul, but this one has a memory. And I’ll never stop being in awe of it.