My porch is only two steps up from the paved walk – just right. It’s a small degree of separation but a distinct one, a nice shading between connection and detachment.
In summer it’s my outdoor living room. Spread on tables and chairs are the books that I’m reading, and also writing materials, a bottle of water, and a cup of tea or a glass of wine. I trustingly leave some things there overnight (nothing valuable) and have only twice in 25 years had anything stolen. There are potted plants on the railing, mostly geraniums; although the porch faces south, it’s impossible to have anything very sun-loving because in summer there’s deep shade from a mountain ash and a juniper, and from a big maple in my front garden, and from the even higher trees beyond that.
As a liminal space between indoors and outdoors, it shares elements of both. Its two walls and a low railing give it a semi-enclosed feel but it’s open to the weather. I enjoy being close to the weather but sheltered from it, sitting there when rain is falling just beyond the edge of the roof. I feel and hear every wind that blows. Fallen leaves drift into the porch and settle comfortably around the edges.
I might also sit there on a mild winter afternoon with a cup of tea, protected from the wind and appreciating the winter sun shining through the lattice of bare branches.
Now, during the pandemic, I’m doing all my entertaining there, not only in the warm weather but also when it’s decidedly chilly, and during the lockdown my brother Gerard and I (who at that time were not yet a bubble) have sat there when the temperature was only a few degrees above freezing. For his birthday dinner in 2020 we had to wear winter coats.
In the summer, guests visit for a cup of tea or a glass of wine, or a passing friend who sees me sitting there stops in to say hello. There’s always a bottle of white wine in the refrigerator in case an impromptu stop-in turns into a longer visit. The porch has space for four people comfortably, but room can be made for six. For evening visits, I provide light with one or two oil lamps, and the soft lamplight turns the foliage of the mountain ash and the juniper into something semi-solid, almost like tapestry. On particularly warm nights there are likely to be fireflies in the mountain ash.
Two or three times, when a sudden summer downpour has caught pedestrians (strangers) by surprise, I’ve beckoned them in to shelter on the porch until the rain stopped.
I also share the porch with other creatures: squirrels, cats, raccoons, a chipmunk. Ants, mosquitoes, bumblebees, wasps. One evening a firefly wandered in. Robins, grackles, sparrows, cardinals, and jays regularly sit in the mountain ash and inspect me closely, and inquisitive chickadees will fly into the porch to have a closer look. One year a pair of robins built their nest in the juniper. A few years ago a duck from Stratford’s lake, which is just a block away, would wander in and happily eat the crushed corn that I put out for her.
Most of all, however, it’s a place to be alone. Its roof and walls protect my vulnerabilities when it’s uncomfortable to be under the open sky. I read and think there, and I do the part of the writing process that involves rumination and making notes. I don’t use my electronics: it’s a place for reading books and for mulling, for hand-writing, journal-writing. Like other thresholds it provides insights, and I allow myself quiet time there to pursue trains of thought. When I’m sitting still, my mind works very differently than it does when my body is in motion.
Quite often I just sit listening to the sound of the wind and feeling the air on my skin, so different from indoor air. I watch the patterns of light and wind and weather, the way the branches and leaves move. I exchange glances with the birds in the mountain ash. A few people pass on the usually-quiet street: on the porch I’m neither with people nor alone. I sit still while the world moves. When I’m moving I see the world as static, so that in order to see its movement I have to be still.
On the porch I’m detached and yet involved, just as I am as a writer. I face both inward and outward. “Between”, after all, denotes both connection and separation, and the porch is a “between” space, like other places and situations where I’m comfortable.
© Marianne Brandis, 2022