The lost art of sitting on the porch
There is something whimsical and innately alluring about sitting on a porch - a nostalgic throwback to bygone days of charming simplicity. A space where people seemed to connect with one another, and where moments to slow down and breathe were a natural part of each day’s contented routine.
That is why…(drum roll please)... we have renovated our pause:read:engage space by adding a porch - in the hope of regaining the art of sitting on a porch.
In 'Dandelion Wine,' Ray Bradbury captures the beauty of the art of porch sitting:
'Sitting on the summer-night porch was so good, so easy and so reassuring that it could never be done away with. These were rituals that were right and lasting; the lighting of pipes, the pale hands that moved knitting needles in the dimness, the eating of foil-wrapped, chilled Eskimo Pies, the coming and going of all the people ...Oh, the luxury of lying in the fern night and the grass night and the night of susurrant, slumbrous voices weaving the dark together.'
We are not suggesting you physically renovate your space, but we are inviting you to come on over and share our porch with us - a time and place, online, to breathe. A space to simply pause...read....and engage.
A porch represents moments of laughter, tears, heartache, romance and hope, and of course, the quiet reading of a favourite novel under a well-worn throw. A porch becomes a place where casual conversations ‘just happen’ over cups of tea or mugs of coffee (with homemade muffins on the side and where the recipes are shared).
These are occasions that cannot be captured in a selfie because they are soul moments, where memories are threaded into our stories in special and surprising ways.
There is an art to sitting on the porch - and sadly,
we have not only lost the art, we have also lost the porch.
'No front porches. My uncle says there used to be front porches. And people sat there sometimes at night, talking when they wanted to talk, rocking, and not talking when they didn't want to talk. Sometimes they just sat there and thought about things, turned things over. My uncle says the architects got rid of the front porches because they didn't look well. But my uncle says that was merely rationalizing it; the real reason, hidden underneath, might be they didn't want people sitting like that, doing nothing, rocking, talking; that was the wrong KIND of social life. People talked too much. And they had time to think. So they ran off with the porches.’
[Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451]
So feel free to linger on our porch. It is a really pretty and welcoming space. If you want to be alone or share it with others, that depends entirely on your mood. Either way, we hope it will be a start to recapturing the lost art of sitting on the porch.
Pause:Read:Engage is an online space where you can spend many ‘porch sitting’ moments. Each of the rooms is designed to help you slow down and be mindful - to enrich your conversations with others.
Pop the kettle on and embark on your first porch sitting occasion by reading our most recent blog which invites you to explore all the rooms on our site.