During the cold months, I pass through our front porch longingly, lingering for a moment to run my hands over the backs of the comfy chairs that wait patiently. “We’ll be together again, I promise,” I whisper to them, while I go back and forth from the house to the driveway, from the driveway to the house, over and over.
Once that first warm day hits, it instantly becomes Porch Season at our house. I defy rain, cold, or wind to keep me from my porch, no matter how heartbreaking midwest springs can be with their inconsistent mood swings. My front porch serves as a fort where I feel completely safe and cloistered without constraints.
The floor is lava!
When our kids were young, a favorite game was The Floor is Lava!, which was simple enough: pretend the floor is hot lava, then avoid touching it. What resulted was a giggle-riddled version of parkour that had our kids bouncing from couch, to ottoman, to area rug, and back again. Avoiding the hard surface of the “toxic” floor was the simple objective.
Why should The Floor is Lava be a child’s game? Now that Porch Season is in full swing, I’m seeing it more and more like a mighty rock rising out of molten, hot lava. One brave step off the porch in either direction — out towards the world beyond my little island, or in towards all the responsibilities of my household — and danger threatens to singe my feet. I choose to stay happily tucked away, sipping on tea that is either hot or iced depending on what mood spring is in, and take in the neighborhood.
The porch is my way of being in the world without fully participating. It is my open-air refuge, a feast for the senses. Even though it isn’t silent — a chorus of birds, barking dogs, far-off train whistles, and lawnmowers provide an underlying soundtrack — it doesn’t distract me from the task at hand. Such tasks might include day dreaming, reading a novel, or trying to recognize my neighbors based on the dog walking beside them. The dishes and the errands can wait. I stay on my little island as long as I dare. Time doesn’t really exist out there, anyway. Indoor hours exist by ticks and beeps. Outdoor hours are shapeless and free-form. Worries and problems take a back seat to observing a rolling, stormy sky or a blazing red sunset.
Porch season is perennial, like the flowers in the garden. It rests in the winter, then returns in the spring refreshed and renewed. Around my little island, the neighborhood children grow taller, and a similar cast of characters return for another season of driving, jogging, walking, and waving. As sure as the seasons change, I will ceremoniously wipe down my chair, plump the porch pillows, shine up the table for a place to set down my drink and my book, and survey the Commonwealth of Porchlandia.
