Dear Editor:

Porches seem to be disappearing across the south. It is not just a loss of a space; it is a loss of moments in time, moments not easily replaced.

The beauty of a wide-open porch, with columns on each end or Victorian hand-made gables on the top, is an inviting place. I can still see green ferns collected across the floor of our own porch. I remember how proud my mother was; she had this one fern, for years, in an old clay pot, on the porch.  It lived through all the obstacles of children and weather and years. The old green swing on the far end of the porch may have been peeling with paint, but it always seemed to wait patiently for children to come out to play.

Those were the days. 

Family reunions with children filling the porches—oozing off the sides—and steps catching the overflow, was a sign of prosperity in the family; the more children, a bigger porch. A full porch looked like a happy family lived there. In a sense, it could be the first impression of someone’s home.

Porches are the escape, or the attempt, to be by yourself at times.  To sleep in a porch swing as it rocks in a breeze, until you are almost under its spell. Then, a nearby brother has stuck a pine straw in your nose to wake you up. He cannot help himself laughing as he runs to tell the others.

Porches are for parents to go to when children are asleep; a chance for a private conversation whispered. 

Porches are the place; children can fly away with a towel clothes-pinned to their necks, high above the ground as Superman might have. Just as it can be the place, children suddenly grow up and walk away from, sometimes fly away high above the clouds, miles away from what they ever imagined and into their own real lives, leaving their make-believe worlds behind.

The porch shared my childhood, my adolescence and my independence. I can still hear the slamming of the screen door behind me as I walked down the steps and left. Our childhood games, our silly dreams faded away with my leaving. If a porch is not full with children, it gets very quiet; the sounds disappear as the children do.

My husband built us a porch last weekend. It is not large but big enough to sit under the stars with him at night. It will be the last porch; our last child will find his independence, when it is his time. However, it is also the porch the adults will come back home to visit. It is also the place to greet them and see the grandkids. It may appear as a cement slab to some, but it is only a disguise. My front porch has a lot of living happening and memories are made.

Sometimes, on my porch, a small breeze will catch me when I least expect it, as I sit in the rocker, forcing strands of my hair to tickle my nose. 

I think of another porch and time and I smile.

Rose Murphy

Fairhope