You don’t see many good, sturdy front porches anymore. There just doesn’t seem to be great use for them like there was, what with our world going and getting in a big hurry. A front porch won’t stand for that, it’s not what it was made to do, so it’s probably best not to have one at all, if it’ll just sit there lonely, crying out for company.

Where I grew up in Virginia, front porches were used for a variety of things, none of which involved the likes of hurrying. We used them for listening to the wind chimes dance, for drinking coffee and sweet tea (and beverages of the harder variety), for carving pumpkins, for throwing the ball for the dog, for setting off illegal fireworks we bought in South Carolina…or just watching the horses graze the field. It was a place where you could do both nothing and something, somehow. It was a place where you didn’t have to face pressure, like the kind you encounter when you’re out for coffee or dinner, let’s say. In those environments, one must perform – chat, make small talk, be charming – not on a porch. Talk, or don’t. Be with someone, not always for the sake of conversation, but for the animal warmth. You’ve probably got plenty to look at anyway, so who needs to chat? In my case, for most of my life, my view was a fence, hand made by my dad out of tree trunks and wire, an old barn (which wasn’t as darling as you might imagine an old barn in the countryside to be), some fruit trees, a crepe myrtle, a couple horses, and finally, our own personal slice of the Blue Ridge Mountains. If you were talking, most of the time it wasn’t about much of anything worth saying, but that was alright. There was no formality to it, it wasn’t required.

I miss it. Mainly because of the casual way you could linger, and especially the way the summer heat felt the same on your skin at night as it did day. The sun was gone, sure, but that humid air hugged you like an old friend you haven’t seen in a while. When my parents sold that house not two years ago, mom may as well have told me dad had died, because that’s how my heart reacted. I knew I wouldn’t be able to come home anymore from the big city and feel that damp July heat on my skin as we sat out there listening to the locusts and the peepers. I knew I would no longer be able to enjoy a steaming cup of coffee while looking out over the foliage on the mountains in October. I would never hear the buzz of the ATV coming up the long, gravel driveway when our neighbors stopped by, just because. It was a chapter closed. A porch for someone else’s bottom now.

We have a patio at our home in Chicago. I enjoy it. I will sit out there and admire my flowers in spring, and watch the leaves slowly drift off the tree and onto the table in autumn. But it’s more of a quiet, serene place than it is a gathering place. Charm, it has, but it won’t invite you and the neighbors there for any old reason. I think sometimes it wants to, but not in the same way an old country porch with hand lain, red clay bricks will. It’s a city space – tailored, trimmed and brimming with the sounds of public transit going by in the distance. You won’t hear the peepers or see the stars. You won’t feel bad if you don’t pay it a visit once a day. That’s okay, a city patio doesn’t expect that from you.

Someday, when God has decided it’s time for a slower life, maybe I’ll have me a big front porch somewhere in the country, if for no other reason than to give my kids a memory so dear.