the Crystal Stair

now son I'll tell you
life for me ain't been no crystal stair.

This is how the poem Mother to Son by Langston Hughes' starts, this is a mother telling her son of her hard life, she explains using the metaphors of stairs to the hard life shes had. The crystal stair sounds a lot like perfection in life at first.but she never said that the crystal stair was good. sure it sounds smooth and easy to walk upon.

the mothers stairs "had tacks in it, and splinters." Naturally the assumption that the crystal stair brings an easiness in life goes along with this.

The more I read it the less it seemed that way. After the second time reading the stairs sounded slippery. And after the third time they sounded cold and empty, they sounded as though they gleamed in a way that made them seem lifeless and fake. Not a life to be desired.

I thought about this some more and it made me wonder which life was better. The answer appeared to be perfectly obvious.

The mothers stair seemed to be better, more used, holding love and emotion. the crystal stair is so stiff and unyielding. it masks its ware, and shines blinding you from its truth.

One life shields you and the other protects you. It could be because one stair is the hard life of the African Americans in those days against the easy life of the Europeans. Was that how the so called mother (And Langston Hughes') saw life for them. That only if life were hard you would have true feelings. Is this true?

Is the only way to have real endurance and spirit to have a hard life? If I had been there, would my life had been considered a crystal stair? Would all of ours? Just because we were born the was we are?