The poetic cadence of counting steps
and yes I still count every step on a staircase
When your disposable income after rent and food is 39 cents per day, walking becomes your main mode of transportation.
Even in Norway in the 1980’s that wasn’t enough money to buy a bus ticket. Not even one way.
The situation that led first the police, and later the taxman, to my door was described in an earlier edition of the Always Care Community newsletter. (I’ll link to it below.)
It also led me to discover a creative side of myself that I had never known.
The road to rhymes…
My daily walk to walk to University was about an hour each way. (I checked this with today’s technology and Google Maps suggests two routes, one is 58 minutes and one is 59. For variation’s sake, I had hundreds of routes, so I’ll just round that off to “about an hour”.)
Trondheim is not known for its sunny, dry climate. It usually rains several times a week, unless it is winter when sometimes the rain turns to snow. I was like an old-fashioned mailman - through rain or sleet or snow etc. - I walked to campus every day.
(Some people might interject and say, “But you didn’t need to go to campus every day.” That’s true, but I was a “lazy” student. I didn’t study, I attended lectures instead. I couldn’t afford to buy books. If I absolutely needed a textbook, I borrowed it from the library and the library was on campus.)
At first, walking was fine. I pretended the exercise and fresh air were great for my health.
Who was I kidding?
As soon as I was comfortable with the route, the wind and rain became more bothersome, and the walk became excruciatingly boring. It seemed to take longer every day.
I tried and found alternate routes to break the monotony.
Soon enough, the alternates were just as bad. No matter whether I was coming from or going to campus, I was wet, windswept, and wondering about my sanity by the time I arrived.
The great and glorious plan…
One day I decided to count the steps to and from campus. The plan was to keep a journal to see how many I ended up with at the end of my education.
Museums and research institutions would fight each other to get the original copy.
At least, that’s what it looked like in my head when I hatched the plan.
My genius idea wasn’t as smart as I thought. It was a short-lived project.
On day one, I was only a few hundred steps in before I lost count.
Concentrating and counting in my head for an hour straight while navigating my way and, once in a while, having to say hello to someone I knew, was impossible.
I lost count and the great and glorious plan ended less than three blocks from the dorm.
If at first you don’t succeed…
One dark Autumn morning I had flashes of memories from movies I’d seen that had scenes from military bases. Inevitably, while the hero and is walking to or from the barracks, a group of boot camp soldiers or marines (depending on the movie) will come jogging by singing some sort of cadence.
“We don’t want to run no more We are soldiers off to war We want tanks, grenades and guns We don’t behave like lonely nuns” I started to count my own steps in cadence and made up my own songs.
“1 – 2 – 3 – 4 I don’t want to walk no more School is way across the town Road goes up instead of down”
As I added verses, played with words and found a rhythm in the rhymes, it was amazing how much shorter my journey time seemed.
My hat goes off to whoever came up with the idea of singing meaningless rhymes during training.
I'm especially grateful to the movie and TV producers that included it in so many shows that it came to me on that dark morning.
Once you start…
Even today, when I walk up or down stairs I always count the steps in fours. “1 – 2 – 3 – 4”.
Yes, my wife thinks I’m a little nuts…
In our Brussels apartment, there were exactly 12 steps from our living area up to the bedrooms. (1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4)
In our Kelowna condo, there are nine steps (1-2-3-4,1-2-3-4,1) between landings and 18 steps straight down from the 2nd floor to the 1st. (or 1st to Ground depending on where you live and how people there count the floors in buildings).
Anyone that’s ever read any of my poems knows that they almost always rhyme and have a simple rhythmic cadence.
Living on 39 cents a day may not have taught me much about money or minimum existence levels, but it did teach me that I love to play with words.
Words became increasingly important to me.
Stay safe, Always Care
87 stories are part of the Always Care Community newsletters, where we share memories, experiences, and lessons learned at the “University of Life”!
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