The Stairs
Long and winding, with 100-plus steps to the top, I've been running these stairs — albeit on and off — for almost two decades.
I begin amid a downpour, running from my dad’s condo, where I’ve been living since late August while visiting from England. It’s the first decent rain I’ve seen in months, odd given the UK and coastal Canada’s reputations for damp weather. As I continue down the road on this early fall morning, a propeller plane whirs beyond the slate-grey clouds, perhaps aiming to land in Victoria’s Inner Harbour.
This stretch, once a thoroughfare for cars, is now mostly earmarked for cyclists. Perhaps that’s why, despite being peak commute time, the traffic this morning is relatively light. While I’ve seen plenty of pedalists along here before, cruising past on a broad range of bikes, the conditions then were far more forgiving of tyres no wider than cased kielbasas.
The cloudburst, it seems, is keeping the deer at bay too, deterring them from their daily habit: hoovering up hydrangeas and honeysuckle — or whatever else they get their greedy little lips on — from the front gardens of every house on the block. I don’t see any bucks, does, or fawns just now. They could be hunkering down somewhere. If so, it’s probably not beneath any bushes, since they've stripped those bare, leaving them leafless like tents without rainflies.
I soon get lost in my thoughts, switching off as I settle into my stride. I’ve only been gone a year, but crashing again on my father’s couch seems to have sped up time. It’s as though I’m a teenager again, spending weekends with him and waking briefly before dawn as he left for his long run. Now, some two decades later, Alzheimer’s has taken its toll, and he’s the one curled up in bed while I head out to train, setting off along the same road he once ran.
Further down, the street bends slightly, leading me past the bottom of Lotbinière, a long, winding avenue about as hard to ascend as it is to pronounce. I avoid the climb on this occasion but recall running up it a decade earlier, when William and Kate, along with their two children, began their Canadian tour by staying at Government House, just beyond the stone wall bordering this lane.
An officer was guarding the base of the hill when I approached. She let me through on one condition: I had to go slowly. Taking it as a joke, I laughed, thinking she meant, “Don’t make me look unfit.” Her expression, though, said otherwise. If I came charging around the corner, red-faced and dripping with sweat, I could be considered a threat and dispatched accordingly. So I tiptoed to the top, vowing not to return until the royals had left.
Rain continues pelting the pavement as I proceed through the neighbourhood. I turn right at the next road and follow it past a few of the houses where my childhood friends once lived. I then turn left towards the back entrance of Hollywood Park, where a concrete footpath takes me past an old, bulbous oak tree. Beneath it, my dad, inspired by Churchill’s “never sit down when you can lie down” philosophy, often napped while I played organised youth baseball on the adjacent sports field.
I cross the road at the top of the park and follow the one ahead, passing the corner building that once housed a convenience store, then a pet supply shop, and now a psychologist’s office. A few blocks farther, I arrive at the street on which I grew up. While our house is long gone, replaced by something modern, the pine tree my parents planted out front after their first Christmas remains, now taller than the competing utility pole.
As a kid, I’d wait at this same corner on Saturday mornings for my dad to come get me. The second his brown Westfalia sputtered around the bend, I’d take off, racing him the 100-odd feet to the house. I won every time. It’s possible he lost on purpose. But that van could hardly accelerate faster than a baby three-toed sloth.
I reach the opposite side of the block and head westbound, climbing the brief incline of Beaven Street. The pitch kicks up along Shotbolt Road, then steepens further down Fairfield Place, where the pouring rain plasters autumn leaves to the asphalt, forcing me to tread lightly. At the top, the road ends suddenly at a shallow pocket of trees. Following the gravel path through them, I emerge at the public parking area on Gonzales Hill.
The sight reminds me of a barbecue I attended in my early twenties at a high school classmate’s house nearby. The next morning, I ran into his folks while grocery shopping. Despite the party ending at a reasonable hour, they apparently hadn’t slept much. One guest had driven over and left his car in this very lot. After drinking too much to drive home, he decided to crash in the back seat. But every time he tossed and turned, the alarm went off, beeping and blaring until the wee hours of the morning.
I proceed along the path through a grassy island, passing a picnic table and trash bin, both dotted with raindrops. The gravel soon gives way to a tranquil lane, which I follow. Beneath a canopy of creaking oaks — and some conifers I don’t know the names of — I pass an Art Deco house on my left, painted all white and guarded by windmill palms. A whiff of chlorine suggests there may also be a swimming pool somewhere out back. But who knows. That’s what Google Maps is for.
Carrying on, I catch glimpses of the ocean between the properties perched on the rocky ledge to my right. A ways down and slightly back lies Gonzales Bay, where, in my youth, I spent many hours exploring the shore, searching beneath rocks for little crabs and bullheads in the tide pools. I also built rafts from washed-up fishing rope and driftwood, only to wind up bobbing on a single log once my knots came undone.
Further along — but not that much further — I pass a Little Free Library plopped atop a post. With its peaked roof, hinged door, and stubby little legs, it seems modelled on an old-timey lantern. While I’ve often envied published authors, on this occasion, I’d rather swap places with the books themselves: all cosy in their dust jackets, dry behind the rain-soaked panes.
Soon, the wind picks up near Walbran Park, where mounds of bare rock rise on both sides of the lane. From their tops, you can spot the Trial Islands lighthouse, perhaps a kilometre offshore, and the San Juan Islands, some ten nautical miles east, just beyond the US–Canada maritime boundary. I forgo the views and continue my run, deciding to save them for a sunnier day.
On the shoulder, a signpost reading “Pathway down to King George Terrace” leads me off the lane onto a trail of dirt and gravel. I follow it through tangled vegetation to a narrow concrete staircase that descends sharply before bending around a big tree and vanishing from view. I’m nervous. In nearly two decades, I’ve only once gone this long without running here: during the COVID lockdown, when this area was roped off to encourage social distancing.
As I hop down the steps, hemmed in by handrails, a woman in a long black coat, her hood pulled tight, turns sideways to let me pass. I’ve encountered people here before, but they’re usually just cutting through, often at the mercy of an eager dog. It’s rare to see someone walking up and down repeatedly, especially in the rain. I can’t tell whether she’s listening to a podcast or taking a call. Either way, the voice drifting from her phone lends a certain warmth to this otherwise gloomy morning.
That said, the best company I had was a slender cat, almost entirely white save for a few grey splotches, like a slightly stained carpet. Several times, while running here around dawn, I’d see it bound onto the steps, dart beneath the railing, and spring up a particular tree whose sharply bent trunk forms something of a shelf. From there it would sit, meowing as I passed, its Siamese-like cry long and drawn out, as if heckling me from a private box at the Apollo.
“What the hell?” I say, reaching the bottom step to find a large boulder butting up against it, blocking the way out to Sunny Lane. The woman in the long coat tells me someone rolled it there on purpose. Whether she knows this for certain or is merely speculating, I’m not sure. Gravity could just as easily have sent it down the slope. Anyhow, it’s hardly the welcome I’d been expecting after a year abroad.
Knowing I stand no chance of moving the rock myself and that I can still get out via the path above, I carry on with my workout. As the burn builds, I think back to my first time here, in the late 2000s, invited by some guys from the gym. After an especially tough session, Scott, who’d driven to the stairs in his manual car, had to sit behind the wheel for half an hour, waiting for his legs to recover enough to press the clutch pedal.
I complete my compulsory ten sets — a number I settled on years ago and often wish I’d reduced to three — then head back up the trail to the soggy terrace lane. The woman in the long coat has called it quits too. Yet despite setting off shortly before me and in roughly the same direction, she’s nowhere to be seen, having disappeared into the dreary morning deluge like a fading patch of fog.
On a whim, rather than head back along Shotbolt, I continue straight towards my old elementary school. Passing behind the red-brick building, I look up at the top-floor windows and recall my first race. I was in Grade 6 and serving detention in one of those classrooms. I don’t recall what landed me there, but it was likely some witty remark I’d made — or whatever passes for wit at that age. Not long into my sentence, however, my teacher, who also coached the cross-country team, cut a deal: if I agreed to fill in for an ill runner at that afternoon’s meet, he’d let me out early. I obliged. And came in last. It would be another decade before I raced again.
Across the road, on the neighbouring block, lies — surprise, surprise — another gravel footpath. I take it, cutting between the backs of several houses before popping out just off Richardson Street, a mile down from my dad’s place. Before long, I’m back home, kicking off my sopping shoes and tossing my socks in the wash. As my calves start to cramp, I remember a question the woman in the long coat had asked me: “How many times do you run up?” I told her ten, adding that I’d been away for a year and hadn’t done the stairs since. “It’s going to be a rough morning,” I’d said. Now, hobbling down the hallway to draw a hot bath, I realise how right I’d been.
On the way, I stop by my father’s bedroom to find him fast asleep, snoring. Seeing him wrapped in the blankets like a kilted sausage, oblivious to my aching muscles, I await the day I’m too old for this route. But I know that when it comes, I’ll give anything to be back on those steps, plodding miserably upwards in the pouring rain.