Out on the Porch

The twilight was blurred and soft.
Supper was almost ready, and the smell of cabbage floated to them from the open hall. All of them were together except Hazel, who would not come home from work, and Etta who still lay sick in bed Their dad leaned back on a chair with his feet on the banisters. Bill was on the step with the kids Their mama sat on the swing fanning herself with the newspaper. Across the street a girl new in the neighborhood skated up and down the sidewalk on one roller skate. The lights on the block were just beginning to be turned on, and far away a man was calling someone.

From “The Heart is a Lonely Hunter” by Carson McCullers

As memories float back to me, I can picture similar scenes when I lived at the family house downtown in the historic district. It had a good-sized porch where I sat and rocked for long periods of time, the ceiling fan soundlessly whirring. Sophie, the cat, would hop by to take her usual place on the ledge, just beyond the porch railing, and the fountain in the front garden watered the dolphin statue in the center of a small basin shaped like a shell.

If it had been a stressful day, tensions had built up and needed to be released, and that old Charleston rocker was the perfect elixir for the soul. I became more and more relaxed. I thought about things other than what had been preoccupying me.

My thoughts started making more sense. They began to come into focus, and I had a better perspective on life at that moment, submerged in the world of ordinary sights and sounds around me. I could hear the voices of people coming from the little grocery store on the corner; the college kid next door walking up to his front door and calling out to his dog Cooper, waiting for him on the upstairs balcony; teenagers skateboarding down the street; and small boys laughing with abandon and chasing each other down the sidewalk.

Meanwhile, as I sat there, I relaxed even more as the sun was going down. The warmth and angular light at that time of day let me doze off for awhile. There was a mellow glow, and the sun felt good in my face as I closed my eyes.

The quotation above comes from a very special little book titled “Out on the Porch: An Evocation in Words Pictures.” It is filled with photographs of old houses and porches, mostly from the turn of the last, and passages from literature in which porch life is described

It was from a time before sprawling suburbs and fenced-in yards. Neighbors more than likely knew each other, with all the various ramifications of that fact. People sat out at twilight on their porches greeting their neighbors and talking into the night as crickets
sang their summer songs and fireflies danced in the darkness.

On the cover is a picture from another of my favorite books, “The American South: Four Seasons of the Land,” with stunning photos by William Bake.

The cover photo shows a house in Vilas, North Carolina , screen door shut, and pale sunlight reflected in one of the windows. There is green rocking chair, and two cats are sitting side by side, looking out on the world

I can almost hear the screen door open and slam shot as kids rush back outside after supper, and the adults make their way out to the porch just sit a while with nothing much to think about or do, and the cares of the day about to be rocked away in those chairs as time stands still.

https://imgur.com/a/eqD9yyA