What I continue to think of as my new job (though I’ve been here for nine months) has put me in touch with a fine set of stairs, so when I have a few minutes I trudge from the fifth to the 11th floor and back down again.

It amazes me that no matter how often I do this it still winds me. I think sometimes about what’s going on in my body, how the muscles are moving, using oxygen, how my breath comes faster the higher I climb, trying to stoke the furnace, that marvelous furnace that fuels us all.

Yes, mine are old (older!) bones and muscles, but I expect them to keep up. I want at least a couple more decades of walking in the suburbs.

So to forget about the pain, I ponder as I clamber.  How can I make this easier? How can I stay in shape? Only one answer: Keep climbing.

(These are not the stairs I climb, but they are very special stairs.)