On the porch

 In yesterday's unseasonable warmth I spent part of the afternoon on the porch, reading The Private Patient (P.D. James's final Adam Dalgliesh novel, which I had unaccountably missed), watching the mockingbird that frequents the viburnum in the yard, greeting neighbors walking their dogs. Later, as the air cooled, I watched the dark clouds slide in as the cold front and the storms approached. 

The 1960s Northeast Baltimore brick rancher we moved into in 1988 has a small front porch that can comfortably accommodate four people. I lounged there from time to time over the years, particularly when taking breaks from cutting the grass, but did not treat it as a place of much importance. 

That changed in 2008 when I was laid off by The Sun and spent a year unemployed. There was time to sit there and read and notice things. I noticed that the redbud I had asked the city to plant at the curb the year before looked dead; I spent the summer watering and fertilizing it, bringing it back to life. I noticed that the light of the late afternoon sun turns the leaves silver on the oak trees in a neighbor's yard. I noticed birdsong. 

Later, when I was back at work, Kathleen and I developed a custom of sitting on the porch on my days off and sharing a bottle of prosecco, sometimes with a snack or with dinner, sometimes just a couple of glasses apiece as we sat quietly and watched the sun go down. 

During the pandemic, the porch became the starting point and ending point of our walks down the middle of the street through the neighborhood, usually to Herring Run, the creek at the bottom of the hill, to see a pair of ducks or a heron, or the neighborhood hawk circling elegantly overhead. Or watching the leaves on a gingko turn jade green in the summer and gold in the fall. 

I am seventy-five now, on the porch after more than forty years of editing and twenty-four years of teaching editing to undergraduates, and I feel entitled to it. (Yes, still a little off-and-on editing and the occasional blog post, and the household chores and yard work have not gone away.)

And I am inside with books while the current cold snap endures. For now. In a few weeks the air will warm again as the leaves come out, and Kathleen and I will once again be able to sit together in the afternoon with a glass of prosecco each, murmuring to each other and greeting passing neighbors as the day slowly fades to dark. 

But, as I said, the porch will seat four. If you should want to arrange to drop by, I could offer you a coffee, or a cup of tea, or a Manhattan or martini, so we could while away an afternoon, chatting companionably about the things of the day, feeling the warmth of the sun.