So there this acrophobic stood, gulping at the top of the stairs where a priest was filmed falling to his death in the final scene of the movie The Exorcist. In one hand, I clutched the railing; in the other, my iPhone camera. Georgetown University students, male and female with calves the size of baseballs, ran up and down the 75 steps, hands free, arms pumping at their sides.

It took me 13 years to get here. I’ve known about the Exorcist stairway ever since I moved to DC, but somehow never found my way here. Now that I was here, I found the whole thing was 3 parts thrilling to 2 parts terrifying.

The view from the top of the stairs was exquisite. Through the narrow sliver of the stairway, you could see a patch of the Potomac River shining in the setting sun, and the Key bridge connecting DC and Virginia. With a brick wall on one side and a stone wall on the other, the stairway was picturesque ,
but also seemed unforgiving —only about 6 feet wide, and almost as steep as a ladder.

I unclenched my one hand and took a few photographs, then a few steps—not one-over-the-other like the Georgetown students, but more like a toddler or an old person, landing both feet on the same step before I stepped down to the next.  When I got to the landings (there were three) I took a breath, re-unclenched my hands from the railing, and took a few more photographs.  At the bottom of the steps, Georgetown University students waited patiently for the steps to clear so they could pump up them again.

But I did it!  Down and up all 75 steps!  My physical therapist would have been very proud. And so that’s how I saw my New Place today.