Where I Go, and Why I Come Back

Murray Stairs 2013

I’m reaching out to you from the stairs of the Arts Tower. It’s March 27, 2026, and I’m 54 years old. I’ve just spent the last twenty-two minutes running from the basement to the 11th floor, over and over again.

In ’95, I knew the panicked, empty feeling in my lungs, leaden legs, the taste of blood, and a competitive need to prove that I was good enough. For 17 years, I returned to the same place to test myself. I became obsessed with finding the absolute outer boundary of my physical self. After 3 decades, it’s about something else. It’s about endurance. It’s about self-knowledge. It's about 60% slower than it used to be :(

I want you to know that I’m still running.

I’m running because I want to be able to engage with the child still inside myself. I need to be curious, to struggle, and to persist. I want to inspire you with the idea that the things we choose to do—the rituals that make us who we are—don’t have to be surrendered because we get old or frail. We choose what is important and possible for each of us and make that happen each day.

Arts Tower 2023

As I stagger upwards, heart humming at 165 beats a minute, I’m still thinking about boundaries. I’m thinking about how easy it is to quit on the way up, and how I try to wait until I’m on the way down to decide if I have one more climb in me. It's about removing tiny elements of friction in every footfall, in each raspy breath, to resolve the previously unthinkable into a coherent possibility. But more importantly, that the person I am—the person who persists, who bears the heat and sweat pouring of his skin, who smells the old paint, and the rubber, and the tile, and keeps climbing—is a good person.

I recognize the immense privilege I have to be here, in this dirty stairwell, with my health, my support structures—with time. Time I spend making myself stronger and more carefully considered. I’m not doing this at your expense, but for your benefit. I want to be around for a long time. I want to echo this persistence into every area of our lives together.

I am gasping for breath, and there’s a stitch in my side that feels like a stick being pushed below my ribs, but there is also beautiful daylight coming through the windows. I love this heat. I love being on the edge of exhaustion where the only thing that matters is how to take the next step forward. I’ve crafted my life so that I can choose this moment, and I choose it for all of us—to make our world a little bit better, a little more deeply felt. What comes next is much more complicated.

I’m heading down now. Done for this day. I’m heading back to you.

Mike

From the Library - 2025