New homes never seem to have the grand old porches of yesteryear, the ones that reach out from the front of the home, like a beckoning hand bidding welcome to all who come, with two old rockers, a porch swing, and perhaps a table or two. No, today all you seem to see is a small, unfriendly concrete slab, no chairs, no swing, just a slab in front of the door. I find this sad, their passing, and as a contractor I know it's a question of economics, combined with the extension of the idea that a home should not have any wasted space. Though how anyone could call a porch wasted space is beyond me, for there is no better place to watch the rain tumble down in sheets, or to feel the evenings gentle breeze. Where else could you watch the neighbor mow his lawn, or chat with the lady next door. It was the perfect place to watch the world go by, and feel safe and secure.
I grew up in an old home with a large porch, blossoming from the front, as long as the house was wide, bigger in fact than most of the rooms in the house. As children we would jump from its side to the ground below, that is, until either Mom or Dad saw us through the window, and put a stop to it with the cry, "What are you kids trying to do break your legs?", then all jumps were suspended until they were out of sight. On rainy days we would play on its floor, listening as the thunder boomed overhead, watching as lightning danced in the sky. My Father put a porch swing on that old porch some twenty years ago, and there is still hangs, swinging back and forth, back and forth, as with it the wind gently plays. Many a cool summer evening we spent out on the porch, conversation our entertainment, no rush, no television, just the cool breeze and the sinking sun. My mother still lives in the old family home and we visit her often, and when the weather is just right, and the sun begins to sink, the porch, and the swing, still call.
The old house we live in today has an old porch, its juts out from the side of the house, off of the kitchen, overlooking the fields and opening to the Eastern sky. The old-fashioned columns, that support the roof were delicately turned on a spinning lath. The paint hangs on their curves in a half-hearted way, chalky and discolored with age, the surface weathered and cracked from one too many Midwestern winters. There is no railing around the old porch, to keep out the wind, which pirouettes with dead leaves and debris in a whirling waltz, danced to the tune of an uplifting rush. This old porch is a comfortable place, like an old sweater, or slippers, or pipe. It groans and shifts like an old man, and suggests of days and memories gone by.
In the morning on the old porch you sit, after first wiping the dew off the chair, with a steaming cup of coffee, to watch and wait for the sun to light its way into the morning sky, pushing back the covering darkness of night as it slowly ascends to its throne in the Olympian heights. The morning breezes blow through the fields of corn that fill the land, causing them to undulate like the waves of the sea. Birds, restless from the night, now with the light of the new day seek the freedom of the sky, and fill it with their song. The cycle begins anew, and holds promise.
As the evening approaches we sit on the old side porch and watch the lights of the town winking on the horizon, the steady, yet persistent flicker of the red light perched on the top of the grain elevator, that juts up into the darkened sky. Lights glow from passing cars and trucks as they rush along the highway. But though they are in sight, they are still far away, and we sit..., isolated..., and find comfort in that. There is no noise like that of the city, the symphony that plays here, is the that of silence..., the gentle rustle of the wind as it plays in the grove, rustling leaves and swaying the tall grass in its wake, the rushing of the creek at the bottom of the hill.
It's easy to detach yourself from the rest of the world out here, and just relax on the porch and ponder. Lean back in the creaking chair and think about nothing and everything, plan for tomorrow and wish for yesterday. At times we watch the glow of the passing cars as they move across on the horizon, and imagine where they are going and why, to Grandma's, or to work, perhaps to visit a sick friend, who knows?.
Above us an untold number of stars blaze in the night sky, and we count them, one at a time. The nebulous band of the milky way cuts a swath among them, and through them, and if you watch long enough you are destined to see a falling star, spitting and sputtering, as it plummets down from its heavenly home, and the child inside you makes a silent wish, while the adult that you are just sits and stares. When the moon is full, a glowing white disk, shadows dance in its pale light, and the darkness never really arrives. So you just sit..., and rock in your chair....
