Come Sit A Spell

My goodness, it’s difficult to list all the reasons why I fall in love with summer over and over again. The snap and hiss of a bonfire, watching lightening bugs from the deck, endless cotton dresses, beef on the grill, tailgate conversations...

Working outside until 10:00 PM, poison ivy, trying to sleep with sunburnt skin but feeling like I’m in a body bag because the aloe sticks to the sheets every time I attempt a roll over....

Funny how I begin to miss winter every year around July 17.

Perhaps my favorite thing of summer, besides the fact that I spend $100

on marigolds, ferns and petunias that don't make it past July 4th due to dehydration, is the life that is lived on the front porch.

The view from my porch swing - Front Porches Forever

On the front porch I’ve hosted a Pampered Chef party that involved more laughs and wine than it did business. I’ve heard bats smack baseballs across the field at Greens Fork’s tiny ball diamond. I've listened to a friend weep because she wanted out of life-long vows. And sitting on the porch I've cried, myself, after learning a dear college friend was finally expecting a much-anticipated addition to her family.

From my front porch I've seen the local cop pull over countless violators. 

Sirens wail and a flashing light -  Nothing better to do on a Tuesday night than give me hell 

The night of my house warming party (mid-December), a guest slept on the welcome mat of my front porch. Nothing says, “I hope all my neighbors like me” like having to kick a frozen homeless-looking guy off the wire rug at 7:00 in the morning. 

From the old front porch, I've seen mopeds, goats, Amish and beloved farm machinery hold up traffic.

Just this week on a front porch in the city I listened to a dear friend talk about the ranch in Montana she was going to buy her daddy when she “made it big”. But as life has a way of making us re-think things, before she made it big her daddy passed. And now, this gal has a whole lot of hours rocking on the front porch swing to think about where her dreams are heading now. 

On the front porch is where, some time ago, I reconsidered my decision to move back to the rural Midwest. But as my mind wonders back to the Washington, DC receptions where I wore 3-inch heels and Georgetown boutique dresses, my sense comes back to me, too. A rural front porch in some fly-over state is where my soul belongs. 

The swing thats hangs on my front porch was handed down to me by two of my most faithful blog readers, Linda and Dave. One of the perks of banking in a small town...everyone knows what you're "saving up to buy" 

What is it about a front porch that represents a simpler time in our American lifestyle? Where critical conversations seem to take place more easily. Where first kisses happen, paying no mind to the buggy porch light. Where home owners place their prettiest wreaths and liveliest plants. Where neighbors sit and actually catch up on life. If not on the front porch, where in the world do rocking chairs belong?

One of the resolutions I set for myself in 2011 is to spend more time relaxing and recharging on the front porch, both alone and with others. I want to listen to the swing creak and watch the Indiana sun sink slowly behind the banks of the Greens Fork River and just remember what it’s like to take a few minutes to breathe. 

Of course, that is right after I remember to put on sunblock to prevent the sheets from sticking and make up for lost time by drowning my too-far-gone gerber daisies.