Front Porch Sitting Quotes

But drenched in vanilla twilight I'll sit on the front porch all night Waist deep in thought because when I think of you I don't feel so alone

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.

She liked to sit on the front porch in the afternoons and read books she'd checked out from the library. Aside from coffee, reading was her only indulgence.

When you meet the girl who’ll be sitting on the front porch holding your hand when you’re eighty, you don’t let a thing like cool dismissive looks, big brothers, or fucking rules stand in your way.

Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos. There are 7 people in my house. We each have different genders. I cut my hair over the bathroom sink and everything I own has a hole in it. There is a banner in our living room that says “Love Cats Hate Capitalism.” We sit around the kitchen table and argue about the compost pile and Karl Marx and the necessity of violence when The Rev comes. Whatever the fuck The Rev means. Every time my best friend laughs I want to grab him by the shoulders and shout “Grow old with me and never kiss me on the mouth!” I want us to spend the next 80 years together eating Doritos and riding bikes. I want to be Oscar the Grouch. I want him and his girlfriend to be Bert and Ernie. I want us to live on Sesame Street and I will park my trash can on their front stoop and we will be friends every day. If I ever seem grouchy it’s just because I am a little afraid of all that fun. There is a river running through this city I know as well as my own name. It’s the first place I’ve ever called home. I don’t think its poetry to say I’m in love with the water. I don’t think it’s poetry to say I’m in love with the train tracks. I don’t think it’s blasphemy to say I see God in the skyline. There is always cold beer asking to be slurped on back porches. There are always crushed packs of Marlboro’s in my back pockets. I have been wearing the same patched-up shorts for 10 days. Someday I will stop being young and wanting stupid tattoos.

Deep winter and the night air is cold. So still, it feels like the world goes on forever in the darkness until you look up and the earth stops in a ceiling of stars. My head against my grandfather's arm, a blanket around us as we sit on the front porch swing. Its whine like a song. You don't need words on a night like this. Just the warmth of your grandfather's arm. Just the silent promise that the world as we know it will always be here.

I couldn't picture heaven. How could a place be any good at all if it didn't have the things there you enjoyed doing? If there were no comic books, no monster movies, no bikes, and no country roads to ride them on? No swimming pools, no ice cream, no summer, or barbecue on the Fourth of July? No thunderstorms, and front porches on which to sit and watch them coming? Heaven sounded to me like a library that only held books about one certain subject, yet you had to spend eternity and eternity and eternity reading them. What was heaven without typewriter paper and a magic box?

In the crook of the crescent moon sits the Holy Lady, with strong muscles and a merciful heart. She kicks her her splendid legs like the moon is her swing and the sky, her front porch. She waves down at Sidda like she has just spotted an old buddy.

She walks barefoot into the humid night, moonlight on her freckled shoulders. Near a huge, live oak tree on the edge of her father's cotton fields, Sidda looks up into the sky. In the crook of the crescent moon sits the Holy Lady, with strong muscles and a merciful heart. She kicks her splendid legs like the moon is her swing and the sky, her front porch. She waves down at Sidda like she has just spotted an old buddy. Sidda stands in the moonlight and lets the Blessed Mother love every hair on her six-year-old head. Tenderness flows down from the moon and up from the earth. For one fleeting, luminous moment, Sidda Walker knows there has never been a time when she has not been loved.

Johnny James was sitting on the front porch, sipping from a glass of gasoline in the December heat, when the doom-screamer came.

Snake Street is an area I should avoid. Yet that night I was drawn there as surely as if I had an appointment.  The Snake House is shabby on the outside to hide the wealth within. Everyone knows of the wealth, but facades, like the park’s wall, must be maintained. A lantern hung from the porch eaves. A sign, written in Utte, read ‘Kinship of the Serpent’. I stared at that sign, at that porch, at the door with its twisted handle, and wondered what the people inside would do if I entered. Would they remember me? Greet me as Kin? Or drive me out and curse me for faking my death?  Worse, would they expect me to redon the life I’ve shed? Staring at that sign, I pissed in the street like the Mearan savage I’ve become. As I started to leave, I saw a woman sitting in the gutter. Her lamp attracted me. A memsa’s lamp, three tiny flames to signify the Holy Trinity of Faith, Purity, and Knowledge.  The woman wasn’t a memsa. Her young face was bruised and a gash on her throat had bloodied her clothing. Had she not been calmly assessing me, I would have believed the wound to be mortal. I offered her a copper.  She refused, “I take naught for naught,” and began to remove trinkets from a cloth bag, displaying them for sale. Her Utte accent had been enough to earn my coin. But to assuage her pride I commented on each of her worthless treasures, fighting the urge to speak Utte. (I spoke Universal with the accent of an upper class Mearan though I wondered if she had seen me wetting the cobblestones like a shameless commoner.) After she had arranged her wares, she looked up at me. “What do you desire, O Noble Born?” I laughed, certain now that she had seen my act in front of the Snake House and, letting my accent match the coarseness of my dress, I again offered the copper.  “Nay, Noble One. You must choose.” She lifted a strand of red beads. “These to adorn your lady’s bosom?”             I shook my head. I wanted her lamp. But to steal the light from this woman ... I couldn’t ask for it. She reached into her bag once more and withdrew a book, leather-bound, the pages gilded on the edges. “Be this worthy of desire, Noble Born?”  I stood stunned a moment, then touched the crescent stamped into the leather and asked if she’d stolen the book. She denied it. I’ve had the Training; she spoke truth. Yet how could she have come by a book bearing the Royal Seal of the Haesyl Line? I opened it. The pages were blank. “Take it,” she urged. “Record your deeds for study. Lo, the steps of your life mark the journey of your soul.”   I told her I couldn’t afford the book, but she smiled as if poverty were a blessing and said, “The price be one copper. Tis a wee price for salvation, Noble One.”   So I bought this journal. I hide it under my mattress. When I lie awake at night, I feel the journal beneath my back and think of the woman who sold it to me. Damn her. She plagues my soul. I promised to return the next night, but I didn’t. I promised to record my deeds. But I can’t. The price is too high.

ALTERNATE UNIVERSE IN WHICH I AM UNFAZED BY THE MEN WHO DO NOT LOVE ME when the businessman shoulder checks me in the airport, i do not apologize. instead, i write him an elegy on the back of a receipt and tuck it in his hand as i pass through the first class cabin. like a bee, he will die after stinging me. i am twenty-four and have never cried. once, a boy told me he doesn’t “believe in labels” so i embroidered the word chauvinist on the back of his favorite coat. a boy said he liked my hair the other way so i shaved my head instead of my pussy. while the boy isn’t calling back, i learn carpentry, build a desk, write a book at the desk. i taught myself to cum from counting ceiling tiles. the boy says he prefers blondes and i steam clean his clothes with bleach. the boy says i am not marriage material and i put gravel in his pepper grinder. the boy says period sex is disgusting and i slaughter a goat in his living room. the boy does not ask if he can choke me, so i pretend to die while he’s doing it. my mother says this is not the meaning of unfazed. when the boy says i curse too much to be pretty and i tattoo “cunt” on my inner lip, my mother calls this “being very fazed.” but left over from the other universe are hours and hours of waiting for him to kiss me and here, they are just hours. here, they are a bike ride across long island in june. here, they are a novel read in one sitting. here, they are arguments about god or a full night’s sleep. here, i hand an hour to the woman crying outside of the bar. i leave one on my best friend’s front porch, send my mother two in the mail. i do not slice his tires. i do not burn the photos. i do not write the letter. i do not beg. i do not ask for forgiveness. i do not hold my breath while he finishes. the man tells me he does not love me, and he does not love me. the man tells me who he is, and i listen. i have so much beautiful time.

I just want to come and sit on your front porch and drink mint juleps.

Ah, even sitting here on my front porch, looking out over the fields, there's a part of me aches to see him walking. To conjure him out of the sunlight in the distance. The shape of my dad, I can almost see it, crossing the field toward me. Come to put his arm around me, reach out an arm to my mother as well, and I'll close my eyes and just breathe.

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.

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. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens any more to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking?chairs any more. They're too comfortable. Get people up and running around. My uncle says . . . and . . . my uncle . . . and . . . my uncle . . .

Time's up, Ladies. Let's go back inside. We can sit by the fire, hold hands, and sing Kumbaya," Seth called from the front porch. "Fucker," Hammer muttered. "I think we should beat his ass next," Liam muttered conspiratorially. Both men cracked a knowing grin. As if they'd read one another's minds, they raised their right arms and flipped Seth off, laughing. It felt good.

At day’s end, he was sitting on his front porch when a member of the Klan walked up the steps of a house nearby and plopped into a chair on the veranda. Once the mask was off, the boy could see that the now visible congregant of the Invisible Empire was his neighbor, Mrs. Crousore.

I pass by cottages with candles glowing in windows, rocking chairs on front porches where people sit with large books on their laps drinking steaming cups of golden milk or tea that smells of chamomile and night jasmine. The entire place feels like a storybook, an old world frozen in time.

The white neighborhoods of Johannesburg were built on white fear—fear of black crime, fear of black uprisings and reprisals—and as a result virtually every house sits behind a six-foot wall, and on top of that wall is electric wire. Everyone lives in a plush, fancy maximum-security prison. There is no sitting on the front porch, no saying hi to the neighbors, no kids running back and forth between houses. I’d ride my bike around the neighborhood for hours without seeing a single kid. I’d hear them, though. They were all meeting up behind brick walls for playdates I wasn’t invited to. I’d hear people laughing and playing and I’d get off my bike and creep up and peek over the wall and see a bunch of white kids splashing around in someone’s swimming pool. I was like a Peeping Tom, but for friendship. It was only after a year or so that I figured out the key to making black friends in the suburbs: the children of domestics." (from "Born A Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood" by Trevor Noah)

Across the street and down the way the other houses stood with their flat fronts. What was it Clarisse had said one afternoon? “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. And the gardens, too. Not many gardens anymore to sit around in. And look at the furniture. No rocking chairs anymore. They’re too comfortable. Get people up and running around. My uncle says . . . and . . . my uncle . . . and . . . my uncle . . .” Her voice faded.

I never went back to the hunter. I didn’t know how to explain the brand. How to explain your grandmother, or apologize. I was afraid he’d treat me as your grandmother had. So I never went back.” Her mouth wobbled. “I’d fly overhead every few years, just … just to see.” She wiped at her face. “He never married. And even when he was an old man, I’d sometimes see him sitting on that front porch. As if he were waiting for someone.

Siren I became a criminal when I fell in love. Before that I was a waitress. I didn't want to go to Chicago with you. I wanted to marry you, I wanted Your wife to suffer. I wanted her life to be like a play In which all the parts are sad parts. Does a good person Think this way? I deserve Credit for my courage-- I sat in the dark on your front porch. Everything was clear to me: If your wife wouldn't let you go That proved she didn't love you. If she loved you Wouldn't she want you to be happy? I think now If I felt less I would be A better person. I was A good waitress. I could carry eight drinks. I used to tell you my dreams. Last night I saw a woman sitting in a dark bus-- In the dream, she's weeping, the bus she's on Is moving away. With one hand She's waving; the other strokes An egg carton full of babies. The dream doesn't rescue the maiden.

He smiled, which was not at all what she'd expected. It wasn't just a polite smile, either. It was the kind that made her want to sit on the front-porch swing, if she'd had a swing, and hum romantic songs from the thirties, those terrific old songs that talked about red sails in the sunset and the glory of love.

Two old men are sitting on the front porch of their retirement home. One man turns to the other and asks, “Do you still get horny?” “Oh yes, sure I do.” “What do you do about it?” the first man asks. “I usually suck a lifesaver or two,” the second man replies. After a few moments the first man asks, “Who drives you to the beach?

I cannot see anything.” “Don’t be silly,” said Frog. “What you see is the clear warm light of April. And it means that we can begin a whole new year together, Toad. Think of it,” said Frog. “We will skip through the meadows and run through the woods and swim in the river. In the evenings we will sit right here on this front porch and count the stars

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.

Nada Barry, widow of Bob Barry, had first arrived in Sag Harbor to carry out some sociological research. One of her observations, even back then, was that the typical American porch culture, whereby a family would sit on the large veranda at the front of the house in the evenings and chat with every passer-by, had disappeared completely in Sag Harbor by the

She stepped in closer and studied my face. “What’s that?” “What’s what?” “That weird goofy grin you’re giving me— holy face full of sex! You slept with him!” “What? No, I—” “Don’t try to outsmart the sexoholic, Liz. You totally boned him!” Like a little girl who’d just gotten her first kiss, I squirmed. “I totally boned him!” “Sweet Jesus! Yes!” She stood up on the front porch and started chanting. “YES! YES! YES!!! The drought is over!” Tristan turned our way and raised an eyebrow. “Everything okay, ladies?” I pulled Faye back down to sit and giggled. “Everything’s fine.” “Including that sweet ass of his,” Faye muttered with a smirk. “So, how was it?” “Well, let’s just say I gave his thing a nickname.” Tears formed in her eyes and her hands flew over her heart. “My little girl is growing up. Okay, what’s the name?” “The Incredible Hulk.” She cringed. “I’m sorry, what?” “The Incr—” “No, no. I heard you the first time. You mean that green monster thing? Liz, are you fucking a guy with a green penis? Because if you are, you need a tetanus shot.” She eyed me up and down, cringing. “And higher standards.

Their house was about a mile outside of town. The kids would play outdoors, in the backyard and the large stubble field behind the house. Dusk seemed to last for hours, and when it was finally dark they would sit under the porch light, catching thickly buzzing June bugs and moths, or even an occasional toad who hopped into the circle of light, tempted by the halo of insects that floated around the bare orange lightbulb next to the front door

There is one story about letters. A perpetually cheerful Frog pays a visit to Toad but finds Toad glum, sitting on his front porch. "This is my sad time of day," says Toad, "when I wait for the mail to come." "Why is that?" says Frog. "No one has ever sent me a letter. My mailbox is always empty. That is why waiting for the mail is a sad time for me." Then Frog and Toad sit "on the porch, feeling sad together." Frog rescues the situation by running home, writing a letter to Toad, and sending it literally by snail mail. The little snail brings it four days later. Even though Toad saw Frog every day, he longed for the strangeness, the otherness of a letter, for something to come from out there and address him, "Dear Toad." Is that the thrill I feel finding a letter from you in my box? The address of a friend is made into a physical fact and every letter an artifact of the otherwise invisible communion of friendship.

When I was four Mother gave a party for some of the wives of the factory workers, and Aunt Mae came into the living room in the middle of the party wearing a dress that showed almost all her front, except for the nipples, which I knew you never could show. The party ended soon after that, and as I was sitting on the porch, I heard the women talking to each other as they left. And they were calling Aunt Mae all sorts of names like I had never heard before and really didn’t know the meaning of until I was almost ten years old.

When they stopped to pick up Mike, Violet started to get out so she could climb in back with Chelsea, giving Mike’s longer legs the front seat, but Jay reached out and caught her wrist. “What are you doing? I want you to sit with me.” His fingers moved to lace through hers as he drew her back inside. “Mike can sit in back.” Violet felt herself blush with satisfaction. Mike came out of his house and jumped down the porch without ever touching the steps. Behind the darkened curtains, the television flickered. “Here he comes!” Chelsea squealed, sounding like a little girl as she bounced up and down in the backseat, shaking the entire car. She clapped her hands with excitement. Violet pulled her seat as far forward as she could to give Mike some extra room. He’d need it if he was going to be confined back there with Chelsea. “Heeyyy, Mike.” Chelsea managed to drawl the two words into several long syllables as Mike slid into the car. The syrupiness of it sounded so foreign oozing from Chelsea’s mouth. “Hey,” Mike said back to her. One word, one syllable. “So I guess it’s just the four of us tonight,” she purred. “Really? I thought we were meeting a buncha people.” “Nope. Just us. Everyone else bailed.” Violet smiled to herself as she listened to Chelsea’s account, amazed that her words came out sounding so…sincere. But Violet knew better. And she realized from the look Jay flashed her that he knew too. Mike, on the other hand, was too new to understand the disturbing way that Chelsea’s mind worked. There was a brief pause, and then Violet swore she could hear a smile in his voice when he answered, “That’s cool.” He might rethink that later, Violet thought, when Chelsea stops holding back and decides to assault him right in the middle of a crowded movie theater. Unless he’s into that kind of thing. She grinned wickedly to herself. And then she wondered if Jay would attack her. She hoped so.

On my second afternoon at Grandma’s, she waved me over from where I was sitting on the front porch, waiting for the mailman. She introduced herself as Roberta and asked me to run to the store for a pack of Newports. When I returned, she waved away the change and proceeded to dazzle me with her exotic life story. She had once been married to a sword swallower who was now in jail where he belonged. Her second husband, the Canuck, God love him, was dead. Roberta had traveled with the Canuck to both Alaska and Hawaii and liked Alaska better. She’d dreamed President Kennedy’s assassination the week before it happened. She had been a vegetarian since the day in 1959 when she opened up a can of beef stew and found a baby rat.

One day, me and him was sitting on my mama and daddy front porch and we heard Stag a ways off, coming up the road, singing, and River said: There's things that move a man. Like currents of water inside. Things he can't help. Older I got, the more I found it true. What's in Stag is like water so black and deep you can't see the bottom. Stag was laughing now. But then Pop said: Parchman taught me the same in me, Philomène. Some days later, I understood what he was trying to say, that getting grown means learning how to work that current: learning when to hold fast, when to drop anchor, when to let it sweep you up. And it could be something simple as sex or it could be something as complicated as falling in love, or it could be like going to jail with your brother, thinking you going to protect him.

THE Andersons lived in a lovely clapboard house at the corner of Washington and Main, a few blocks past the hubbub of stores and businesses, where the town settled into private residences for the well-to-do. Beyond the wide front porch, where Mr. and Mrs. Anderson liked to sit in the evenings, the man scooping into his silk tobacco pouch and the woman squinting at her needlework, were the parlor, dining room, and kitchen. Bessie spent most of her time on that first floor, chasing after the children, preparing meals, and tidying up. At the top of the staircase were the bedrooms—Maisie and little Raymond shared theirs—and the second washroom. Raymond took a long nap in the afternoon and Bessie liked to sit in the window seat as he settled into his dreams. She could just make out the top two floors of the Griffin Building, with its white cornices that blazed in the sunlight.

Hear that? Living skulls! What are we doing here? What war at Troy? Does anyone care? Gods of love and hate! Aren't they the same god? All of us, all our lives, searching for the one perfect enemy- you, me, Helen, Paris, Menelaos, all those crazy Greeks! all those hapless Trojans! my dear beloved Jack! Jack and I fought all the time. I remember almost nothing but the fights - every fight a war to end all wars, you know how it goes, a righteous war, a final war, the worst fight you've ever had, you can't do this again, this time you'll get things straight one way or the other or it's over, he'll see what you mean, see you're right, fights aren't about anything except being right, are they? once and for all. You feel old. Wrong. Clumsy. You sit in two chairs on the porch. Or the kitchen. Or the front hall. Hell arrives. It's as if the war was already there, waiting, the two of you poured into it like wet concrete. The chairs you sit in are the wrong chairs, they're the chairs you never sit in because they're so uncomfortable, you keep thinking you should move but you don't, your neck hurts, you hate your neck, evening closes in. Birds move about the yard. Hell yawns. War pours out of both of you, steaming and stinking. You rush backward from it and become children, every still sentence slamming you back into the child you still are, every sentence not what you meant to say at all but the meaning keeps flaring and contracting, as sparks drop on gasoline, Fuckshit this! Fuckshit that! no reason to live. You're getting vertigo. He's being despicable. Your mother was like this. Stop whimpering. No use asking, What is this about? Don't leave the room. I have to leave the room. Breathless, blaming, I'm not blaming! How is this not blaming! Hours pass or do they. You say the same things or are they different things? Hell smells stale. Fights aren't about anything, fights are about themselves. You're stiff. You hate these chairs. Nothing is resolved. It is too dark to see. You both go to bed and doze slightly, touching slightly. In the night a nightmare. Some giant bird, or insect, some flapping thing, trying to settle on the back of your neck, you can't see what it is or get it off. Pure fear. Scream unearthly. He jerks you awake. Oh sweetie, he says. He is using his inside voice, his most inside voice. The distance between that voice and the fight voice measures your whole world. How can a voice change so. You are saved. He has saved you. He sees you saved. An easement occurs, as night dew on leaves. And yet (you think suddenly) you yourself do not possess sort of inside voice - no wonder he's lonely. You this cannot offer this refuge, cannot save him, not ever, and, although physiological in origin, or genetic, or who knows, you understand the lack is felt by him as a turning away. No one can heal this. You both decide without words to just - skip it. You grip one another. In the night, in the silence, the grip slowly loosens and silence washes you out somewhere onto a shore of sleep. Morning arrives. Troy is still there. You hear from below the clatter of everyone putting on their armour. You go to the window.

Is Joanna Gaines here? We have a warrant here for her arrest,” the officer said. It was the tickets. I knew it. And I panicked. I picked up my son and I hid in the closet. I literally didn’t know what to do. I’d never even had a speeding ticket, and all of a sudden I’m thinking, I’m about to go to prison, and my child won’t be able to eat. What is this kid gonna do? I heard Chip say, “She’s not here.” Thankfully, Drake didn’t make a peep, and the officer believed him. He said, “Well, just let her know we’re looking for her,” and they left. Jo’s the most conservative girl in the world. She had never even been late for school. I mean, this girl was straitlaced. So now we realize there’s a citywide warrant out for her arrest, and we’re like, “Oh, crap.” In her defense, Jo had wanted to pay those tickets off all along, and I was the one saying, “No way. I’m not paying these tickets.” So we decided to try to make it right. We called the judge, and the court clerk told us, “Okay, you have an appointment at three in the afternoon to discuss the tickets. See you then.” We wanted to ask the judge if he could remove a few of them for us. “The fines for our dogs “running at large” on our front porch just seemed a bit excessive. We arrived at the courthouse, and Chip was carrying Drake in his car seat. I couldn’t carry it because I was still recovering from Drake’s delivery. We got inside and spoke to a clerk. They looked at the circumstances and decided to switch all the tickets into Chip’s name. Those dogs were basically mine, and it didn’t make sense to have the tickets in her name. But as soon as they did that, this police officer walked over and said, “Hey, do you mind emptying out all of your pockets?” I got up and cooperated. “Absolutely. Yep,” I said. I figured it was just procedure before we went in to see the judge. Then he said, “Yeah, you mind taking off your belt?” I thought, That’s a little weird. Then he said, “Do you mind turning around and putting your hands behind your back?” They weren’t going to let us talk to the judge at all. The whole thing was just a sting to get us to come down there and be arrested. They arrested Chip on the spot. And I’m sitting there saying, “I can’t carry this baby in his car seat. What am I supposed to do?” I started bawling. “You can’t take him!” I cried. But they did. They took him right outside and put him in the back of a police car. Now I feel like the biggest loser in the world. I’m in the back of a police car as my crying wife comes out holding our week-old baby. I’m walking out, limping, and waving to him as they drive away. And I can’t even wave because my hands are cuffed behind my back. So here I am awkwardly trying to make a waving motion with my shoulder and squinching my face just to try to make Jo feel better. It was just the most comical thing, honestly. A total joke. To take a man to jail because his dogs liked to walk around a neighborhood, half of which he owns? But it sure wasn’t funny at the time. I was flooded with hormones and just could not stop crying. They told me they were taking my husband to the county jail. Luckily we had a buddy who was an attorney, so I called him. I was clueless. “I’ve never dated a guy that’s been in trouble, and now I’ve got a husband that’s in jail.

What do I do now?” I ask desperately. “Tell me! What do I do now?” He remains calm. He looks at me closely and says, “Keep living, Ed…. It’s only the pages that stop here.” He stays perhaps another ten minutes, probably due to the trauma that has strapped itself to me. I remain standing, trying to contemplate and recover from what’s transpired. “I really think I’d better go,” he says again, this item with more finality. With difficulty, I walk him to the door. We say goodbye on the front porch, and he walks back up the street. I wonder about his name, but I’m sure I’ll earn it soon enough. He’s written about this, I’m sure, the bastard. All of it. As he walks up the street he pulls a small notebook from his pocket and writes a few things down. It makes me think maybe I should write about all this myself. After all, I;m the one who did all the work. I’d start with the bank robbery. Something like, “The gunman is useless.” The odds are, however, that he’s beaten me to it already It’ll be his name on the cover of all these words, not mine. He’ll get all the credit. Or the crap, if her does a shit job. But I just remembered the I was the one- not him- who gave life to these pages. I was the one who- I tell me to stop. It’s an inner voice and it’s loud. All day, I think about many things, though I try not to. I look through the folder and find everything as he said. All the ideas are written in and people are sketched. Scratchy excerpts are stapled together. Beginnings and endings merge and bend. Hours wander past. Days follow them. I don’t leave the shack, and I don’t answer the phone. I barely even eat. The Doorman sits with me as the minutes pass by. For a long time, I wonder what I’m waiting for, but I understand it’s just like he said. I guess it’s for life beyond these pages.

I took a shower after dinner and changed into comfortable Christmas Eve pajamas, ready to settle in for a couple of movies on the couch. I remembered all the Christmas Eves throughout my life--the dinners and wrapping presents and midnight mass at my Episcopal church. It all seemed so very long ago. Walking into the living room, I noticed a stack of beautifully wrapped rectangular boxes next to the tiny evergreen tree, which glowed with little white lights. Boxes that hadn’t been there minutes before. “What…,” I said. We’d promised we wouldn’t get each other any gifts that year. “What?” I demanded. Marlboro Man smiled, taking pleasure in the surprise. “You’re in trouble,” I said, glaring at him as I sat down on the beige Berber carpet next to the tree. “I didn’t get you anything…you told me not to.” “I know,” he said, sitting down next to me. “But I don’t really want anything…except a backhoe.” I cracked up. I didn’t even know what a backhoe was. I ran my hand over the box on the top of the stack. It was wrapped in brown paper and twine--so unadorned, so simple, I imagined that Marlboro Man could have wrapped it himself. Untying the twine, I opened the first package. Inside was a pair of boot-cut jeans. The wide navy elastic waistband was a dead giveaway: they were made especially for pregnancy. “Oh my,” I said, removing the jeans from the box and laying them out on the floor in front of me. “I love them.” “I didn’t want you to have to rig your jeans for the next few months,” Marlboro Man said. I opened the second box, and then the third. By the seventh box, I was the proud owner of a complete maternity wardrobe, which Marlboro Man and his mother had secretly assembled together over the previous couple of weeks. There were maternity jeans and leggings, maternity T-shirts and darling jackets. Maternity pajamas. Maternity sweats. I caressed each garment, smiling as I imagined the time it must have taken for them to put the whole collection together. “Thank you…,” I began. My nose stung as tears formed in my eyes. I couldn’t imagine a more perfect gift. Marlboro Man reached for my hand and pulled me over toward him. Our arms enveloped each other as they had on his porch the first time he’d professed his love for me. In the grand scheme of things, so little time had passed since that first night under the stars. But so much had changed. My parents. My belly. My wardrobe. Nothing about my life on this Christmas Eve resembled my life on that night, when I was still blissfully unaware of the brewing thunderstorm in my childhood home and was packing for Chicago…nothing except Marlboro Man, who was the only thing, amidst all the conflict and upheaval, that made any sense to me anymore. “Are you crying?” he asked. “No,” I said, my lip quivering. “Yep, you’re crying,” he said, laughing. It was something he’d gotten used to. “I’m not crying,” I said, snorting and wiping snot from my nose. “I’m not.” We didn’t watch movies that night. Instead, he picked me up and carried me to our cozy bedroom, where my tears--a mixture of happiness, melancholy, and holiday nostalgia--would disappear completely.

As Frank promised, there was no other public explosion. Still. The multiple times when she came home to find him idle again, just sitting on the sofa staring at the rug, were unnerving. She tried; she really tried. But every bit of housework—however minor—was hers: his clothes scattered on the floor, food-encrusted dishes in the sink, ketchup bottles left open, beard hair in the drain, waterlogged towels bunched on bathroom tiles. Lily could go on and on. And did. Complaints grew into one-sided arguments, since he wouldn’t engage. “Where were you?” “Just out.” “Out where?” “Down the street.” Bar? Barbershop? Pool hall. He certainly wasn’t sitting in the park. “Frank, could you rinse the milk bottles before you put them on the stoop?” “Sorry. I’ll do it now.” “Too late. I’ve done it already. You know, I can’t do everything.” “Nobody can.” “But you can do something, can’t you?” “Lily, please. I’ll do anything you want.” “What I want? This place is ours.” The fog of displeasure surrounding Lily thickened. Her resentment was justified by his clear indifference, along with his combination of need and irresponsibility. Their bed work, once so downright good to a young woman who had known no other, became a duty. On that snowy day when he asked to borrow all that money to take care of his sick sister in Georgia, Lily’s disgust fought with relief and lost. She picked up the dog tags he’d left on the bathroom sink and hid them away in a drawer next to her bankbook. Now the apartment was all hers to clean properly, put things where they belonged, and wake up knowing they’d not been moved or smashed to pieces. The loneliness she felt before Frank walked her home from Wang’s cleaners began to dissolve and in its place a shiver of freedom, of earned solitude, of choosing the wall she wanted to break through, minus the burden of shouldering a tilted man. Unobstructed and undistracted, she could get serious and develop a plan to match her ambition and succeed. That was what her parents had taught her and what she had promised them: To choose, they insisted, and not ever be moved. Let no insult or slight knock her off her ground. Or, as her father was fond of misquoting, “Gather up your loins, daughter. You named Lillian Florence Jones after my mother. A tougher lady never lived. Find your talent and drive it.” The afternoon Frank left, Lily moved to the front window, startled to see heavy snowflakes powdering the street. She decided to shop right away in case the weather became an impediment. Once outside, she spotted a leather change purse on the sidewalk. Opening it she saw it was full of coins—mostly quarters and fifty-cent pieces. Immediately she wondered if anybody was watching her. Did the curtains across the street shift a little? The passengers in the car rolling by—did they see? Lily closed the purse and placed it on the porch post. When she returned with a shopping bag full of emergency food and supplies the purse was still there, though covered in a fluff of snow. Lily didn’t look around. Casually she scooped it up and dropped it into the groceries. Later, spread out on the side of the bed where Frank had slept, the coins, cold and bright, seemed a perfectly fair trade. In Frank Money’s empty space real money glittered. Who could mistake a sign that clear? Not Lillian Florence Jones.

There is one story about letters. A perpetually cheerful Frog pays a visit to Toad but finds Toad glum, sitting on his front porch. "This is my sad time of day," says Toad, "when I wait for the mail to come." "Why is that?" says Frog. "No one has ever sent me a letter. My mailbox is always empty. That is why waiting for the mail is a sad time for me." Then Frog and Toad sit "on the porch, feeling sad together." Frog rescues the situation by running home, writing a letter to Toad, and sending it literally by snail mail. The little snail brings it four days later. Even though Toad saw Frog every day, he longed for the strangeness, the otherness of a letter, for something to come from out there and address him, "Dear Toad." Is that the thrill I feel finding a letter from you in my box? The address of a friend is made into a physical fact and every letter an artifact of the otherwise invisible communion of friendship.

The two of us sat back down in the swing and continued sitting side-by-side the first Day of June; moving to-and-fro in the swing on the front porch. A soothing summer breeze caught a ride on the south wind and blew across our faces. I enjoyed endless days and nights sitting, sighing, lying, walking, and talking alongside my best friend..." Lone Walk From Panther Creek

Lucien was sitting on his front porch, drinking

Hang Gliding Jim Bob had always wanted to try hang gliding, but it was pretty expensive. So he worked hard and over time was able to save enough money to buy his new toy.  When he got home, he read through the manual and quickly assembled his glider.  Then he took it up the highest mountain, near his home.  He readied everything for his first flight and got strapped in.    Just like he had learned, he ran as fast as he could to the edge of the cliff and jumped into the wind.  He was flying! Around that same time Ma and Pa Kettle were sitting on their front porch enjoying some tea together.  Pa was looking up into the sky, enjoying the calm of the early evening, when he suddenly let out a gasp and said, “That has got to be the biggest bird I have ever seen!”  “I need my rifle, can you get it for me Ma?” he asked his wife. Ma Kettle ran into the house and returned shortly with a long rifle.  She handed it to Pa.  He took aim and fired twice at the big bird.  The bird kept sailing through the sky.  “It looks like you missed,” Ma said. “Yes, but at least that bird let go of Jim Bob.

An end where I'd fall asleep in Ramirez's arms every night. Where I'd wake up every morning to the sound of his shower and the smell of freshly brewed coffee. Where we'd sit on the sofa and watch movies without worrying about which one of us had to drive home in an hour for an early morning. Where I knew that no matter how horrible my bed-head was in the morning, he'd still love me anyway. Where no matter how many cases took him away in the middle of the night, I knew he'd always come home to me. Our home. Where one day we'd start a family, watch it grow, and hold hands on the front porch as we turned into old, wrinkly, prunes who only had eyes for each other.

Not a morning person, is she?” a lazy voice drawled. Maddie dropped her hand to stare into Sam Roberts’s amused face. He sat across from Mitch, long, denim-clad legs stretched out, one hand hugging a coffee cup. Of course. What was breakfast with Mitch if not another new humiliation? This town was custom-made to put her in awkward situations. She glared at Mitch, who grinned like the cat who ate the canary. “Do you ever have breakfast alone?” He shrugged. “They’re big fans of the drop-in.” “From the looks of her, she should be in a much better mood,” Sam said, clearly entertained. Maddie crossed her arms over her breasts. She might as well be naked in her skimpy tank top and cotton shorts. “No need to be shy.” Sam winked at her. “I saw you last night, although you were considerably less rumpled.” She rolled her eyes. “Isn’t it polite to allow a girl some dignity?” “What do you mean, last night?” Mitch asked at the same time, eyes narrowed on Sam. A muscle jumped in his forearm as his fingers tightened around his mug. “Don’t even tell me that’s what you were wearing.” “I was sitting on the front porch when he came home.” She ran her hand through her disheveled hair, getting caught in the wild mass of tangles. Sam gave Mitch a sly, devious smile. “Not my fault you left her alone for just anyone to come take a peek.” Mitch’s attention snapped to Maddie. She refused to fidget under his scrutiny. One golden brow rose. Maddie huffed. “I don’t need to explain myself to you.” “Hmmmm . . .” Mitch gave her a through once-over. Maddie’s chin shot up. “This is your fault, not mine!” Sam scrubbed his blond, stubbled jaw. “She’s got a point.” “I suppose she does,” Mitch said, but his tone spoke of a different story. Those amber eyes told her without words that she’d be paying later with his own delicious brand of torture. She

Today my friend Julie let me bring her dinner. Her husband, Doug, had two very scary seizures in the last two days, and a zillion tests and scans and appointments with neurologists. They had just come home from the hospital, and they were sitting on the front porch when I drove up, and Lilly, their three-year-old, was riding her big-girl bike on the sidewalk in her pink underpants. It was ninety-four degrees today, and they were exhausted. Being with them made me think about the idea that everything is okay. That idea is cruel in its untruth. The bottom just falls out sometimes, and nobody is exempt. I can’t take away the seizures or tell Lilly that it’s never going to happen again, although I would if I could. But I can be there, and I can feed them, and I can listen to their stories, of funny things the doctors said, and the strange and infuriating things family members invariably say in tense situations. I can sit in silence in the heat and stillness of a sticky June night, knowing that everything is not okay, but that this tiny moment is.

Just stop. You promised a talk. We will talk, but tomorrow.” “Why not now?” I pushed against his chest, but he was immobile. He sighed and tipped my chin up. “Because I’m afraid if I spend anymore time alone with you now I will just end up…” He took in a breath. “I’ll just end up kissing you and making a fool out of myself.” It was my turn to catch my breath. He leaned in and pressed his forehead to mine. I couldn’t fight him. I didn’t want to fight him. “Since I saw you this morning, sitting on the porch swing with your hair all a mess, I’ve been thinking about nothing but kissing you.” His voice warmed me. I swallowed hard and breathed in his scent; a flood of memories rush at me because of just that…Max’s scent. “I don’t want you to kiss me,” I lied. If my hands grasping the front of his shirt didn’t give away my lie, the tremble in my voice would. He chuckled softly. “No?” I shook my head. He kissed my forehead gently. “Is that okay?” I nodded. His lips traveled gently over my temple and he kissed my cheek. “And that?” Again I nodded dumbly. He wrapped his arms more securely around me. The warmth of his body was comfort and excitement all in one. I felt his heart beating furiously against my own. “This?” I trembled. “Hadley?” I pushed gently against his chest but his arms only flexed in protest. “I can’t,” I whispered.

The few times Harper had come down the mountain, Mercy always managed to find him to tag along with whatever he was doing. She’d developed a strange attachment to the scary soldier. One morning she’d opened the front door to walk outside and had to slam to a stop in surprise. Harper was sitting on the porch stairs and her daughter stood behind him, with her arms wrapped as far around his massive shoulders as she could reach. She looked ridiculously tiny compared to the former soldier with the shaved head, but the man didn’t move for several long seconds. Finally, he patted her little hands and sent her running to the playground. Lora thought she’d escaped his notice, but when he stood up he caught her eye in the doorway. “She’s worth her weight in gold,” he rumbled. “I will do everything in my power to keep her safe.” Lora nodded and watched as he disappeared into the woods, huge gun held in his arms like a baby. When she’d asked Mercy about the incident later, her daughter had shrugged. “He seemed sad so I gave him a hug.” Those words had humbled her. But

the rocking chair test.” “Pretend that you’re one hundred years old,” Alicia would say, “and you’re sitting out on your front porch in a rocking chair. Now think back on your life. What was it like? Do you have any regrets?

That’s why the first twenty years we eat, sleep and enjoy ourselves; the next forty, we slave in the sun to support our family; the next ten, we do monkey tricks entertaining the grandchildren; and, for the last ten, we sit on the front porch and bark at everyone who passes.

Silence I wondered why Grandmother and Grandpapa could sit in Silence on the front porch She smoked a cigarette He didn’t Sitting on the swing in Silence I washed the dishes and cleaned up the kitchen trying to figure out why they sat in Silence Then I got to be my own age with my own deck and my own person and I understood

I got tired,” I said, then tried to find the words that would make him understand. “I don’t mean tired like ‘it’s been a long day’ tired, either. Imagine that you just really don’t want to fucking get out of bed, like you can’t find the energy or the desire to start your day at all. Your body is heavy and your mind is fuzzy, but then you think ‘alright, if I get up, I can go get my favorite coffee’. So, you manage to pull your clothes on and make it down the block to get some; and they’re out. Then you leave and it starts raining, really raining, so now you’re wet and cold because you didn’t think to grab an umbrella. Then you make it home just to realize you’ve locked yourself out. So, you sit there on the front porch, coffee-less, soaked to the bone, thinking about how you didn’t even want to get out of bed in the first place. Can you imagine that feeling?” Scott took a moment to think about it, then just slowly nodded. “Yeah, I think so. It’s kind of a ‘what was the point?’ feeling, right?” “Exactly,” I said. “Now take that feeling, multiply it by about fifty, and that’s how I feel every day. That’s what getting out of bed is like, every day. Every single time, I have to find a reason. Even when it’s a good day, I still feel like I’m sitting out there in the rain, my back to a locked door. And I just think to myself that I wouldn’t have to feel that way if I was dead. That kind of tired is bone deep, and suffocating, and I hate it. And I hope you never have to really understand it, because it’s an awful way to be.

The night is the frenetic fox darting across a roadway in a flash of orange. It is being tailed by the police for a whole fucking mile, with both hands firmly wrapped about the steering wheel. It is spying a shooting star blinking across the horizon, and everybody saying did- you-see-that. The bustling truck-stops. and the blotter- dark nights, when driving safely seems difficult. The fush-fush of cars speeding ahead in an overpass highway. The bloated raccoon knocking the garbage cans over and the waddling lamp-eyed possum strolling past, within a few feet even, as you sit on the front porch and smoke. It is drunken talk at 1 AM, conversation of substance, depth and style, when all errant ideas are concocted. It is fanning motor-heat lathering the chest and skinny legs in the cold car. Sudden, abrupt episodes of fatigue that make you retire to bed earlier than usual. This is the night given to snapshot, light-bath revelations that sends one running for notepad and pen, and repeating, out loud, the premise over and over as you stride. The night is a strange, curdling scream at 3 am, wondering if it is a cat, a coyote, a baby.

Sitting in the rocking chair on her front porch, she gazed upon the steely sea and jotted down her killing list, thinking if she'd missed anyone. No, no one, she smiled and the abendrot sky looked several shades redder.

Last summer I was sitting on the front porch with Pop talking about this season and I asked him if he had any advice. All he said to me was ‘Son, the ones who are great are those who learn to enjoy the struggle.’ “I

Plant transplants outside according to the spacing the fully grown plants will need. Pay attention to the depth of the hole, and ensure that you don’t bury the stem in the soil (except in special cases—see Growing Tip on the following page). Take the temperature of the soil to make sure it is warm enough. (The soil should be at least 60 to 65 degrees F for planting warm-weather vegetables such as tomatoes or peppers.) Before planting any transplants outside, prepare them by hardening them off. GROWING TIP Tomato plants should be planted deep. Strip off all but the top four sets of leaves. Plant the entire rest of the plant below the soil line. Tomato plants will grow roots from the stem, making them stronger and healthier. Hardening off before Planting out Vegetable transplants grown inside a greenhouse (or your house) need to be hardened off (acclimated to the change in temperature and light) before they’re planted outside. Even if you buy plants that were sitting outside at a garden center, it’s a good idea to harden them off before planting. For all you know, the plants were taken from the greenhouse, loaded on a truck, and brought to the garden center on the same day you saw them sitting outside. How to Harden Off Transplants 1. Place plants in a sheltered location such as a porch or patio for the day, and bring them in at night. Do this for three or four days. 2. Next, leave them outside all day in the protected location. Do this for about a week. Don’t forget to water while you’re doing this! 3. Finally, move the plants from the sheltered location (the porch or patio) to a more exposed location (the front sidewalk or driveway). Leave them there for three or four days. 4. Wait for a cloudy day (if possible) and plant your plants in the garden. Planting out on a cloudy day will lower the stress that the plants experience.

My teeth clatter in my mouth as everything ripples and shudders in the storm of shells, whining, whizzing. The kid on the bicycle rolls out of sight. Untouched. A miracle. A dream. The shells abruptly cease and there is only the settling creak of the car seat, a scatter of twittering birds in the shrubs and trees. I could use some gum. Where do you buy gum so early besides the service station? It seems wrong to go there since we don't need any gasoline. We don't drive enough. A tank of gas lasts us forever. I get behind the wheel and in the mirror I can see my eyelids fluttering. I sit squeezing the steering wheel until I realize I haven't started the engine. The garage conceals me. I don't want to go out into the open. A horse whinnys – are they bringing up the artillery? It's the farm field where old Wallam tills a little garden, his yard is the biggest and runs alongside the back of ours to the farm where his family has their orchards. What's wrong with me? Sounds of explosions, bullets, voices of men. Volleys. I smell smoke. Burning things, festering ruptured corpses with maggots pulsing under horrible skin and the shells, the horse, it's hit, it shrieks, explodes apart – can we pull the gun by hand? The crew is dead too, bullets are making their bodies jump even after they have broken apart like smashed holiday nuts. I want to scream. Maybe I am? I begin breathing rapidly. I don't know how long I am there but I hear the screen door open and I key the ignition. “Car troubles?” Mr. Kincaid calls out to me from the front porch. “No troubles,” I say setting my arm out the window and holding the mirror to keep my hand steady. “Lovely day.” The sun was really rising, taking the temperature up with it, hot shards of searing light coming over the treetops to stab at everything that couldn't find the shade. I couldn't find the shade.

I would sit up on top of the woodpile playing and singing at the top of my lungs. Sometimes I would take a tobacco stake and stick it in the cracks between the boards on the front porch. A tin can on top of the tobacco stake turned it into a microphone, and the porch became my stage. I used to perform for anybody or anything I could get to watch. The younger kids left in my care would become the unwilling audience for my latest show. A two-year-old’s attention span is not very long. So there I would be in the middle of my act, thinking I was really something, and my audience would start crawling away. I was so desperate to perform that on more than one occasion I sang for the chickens and the pigs and ducks. They didn’t applaud much, but with the aid of a little corn, they could be counted on to hang around for a while.

See that big white house with the wide front porch?” he asked. “That’s our home and we love it. We sit out on the porch in the evenings and watch the sunset and look down on our place here. It’s peaceful. We don’t need any more problems. We are in a position to enjoy life now, and that’s just what we intend to do.” His

A LITTLE AFTER FIVE, he went out to the Lexus SUV that he drove outside the Cities, and took off for Wisconsin. He was not in a mood for the scenic tour, so he went straight up I-35 to Highway 8, then east through Chisago City and Lindstrom and past Center City to Taylors Falls, then across the St. Croix into Wisconsin, north on Highway 82, off on River Road and finally, down a dirt lane lined with beech and oak trees to a redwood house perched on a bluff over the river. The front door was propped open with a river rock. The governor was sitting on a four-season porch, already closed in for the winter, that looked over the river valley. When Lucas banged on the screen door, he called, “Straight through to the porch. Get a beer out of the kitchen, or make yourself a drink.

The fact that there were more adults than children at her party didn't seem to faze Dixie. "That child is like a dandelion," Lettie said. "She could grow through concrete." Dixie's birthday party had a combination Mardi Gras/funeral wake feel to it. Mr. Bennett and Digger looped and twirled pink crepe paper streamers all around the white graveside tent until it looked like a candy-cane castle. Leo Stinson scrubbed one of his ponies and gave pony rides. Red McHenry, the florist's son, made a unicorn's horn out of flower foam wrapped with gold foil, and strapped it to the horse's head. "Had no idea that horse was white," Leo said, as they stood back and admired their work. Angela, wearing an old, satin, off-the-shoulder hoop gown she'd found in the attic, greeted each guest with strings of beads, while Dixie, wearing peach-colored fairy wings, passed out velvet jester hats. Charlotte, who never quite grasped the concept of eating while sitting on the ground, had her driver bring a rocking chair from the front porch. Mr. Nalls set the chair beside Eli's statue where Charlotte barked orders like a general. "Don't put the food table under the oak tree!" she commanded, waving her arm. "We'll have acorns in the potato salad!" Lettie kept the glasses full and between KyAnn Merriweather and Dot Wyatt there was enough food to have fed Eli's entire regiment. Potato salad, coleslaw, deviled eggs, bread and butter pickles, green beans, fried corn, spiced pears, apple dumplings, and one of every animal species, pork barbecue, fried chicken, beef ribs, and cold country ham as far as the eye could see.

The way he learned to sing was by imitating the songbirds: their warbles and whistles, their scolds. Before his stroke he'd been able to imitate certain notes and melodies of their calls, but never whole songs. I was sitting under the umbrella with him, in early March-March second, the day the Texas Declaration of Independence had been signed, when Grandfather began to sing. A black-and-white warbler had flown in right in front of us and was sitting on a cedar limb, singing-relieved, I think, that we weren't owls. Cedar waxwings moved through the brush behind it, pausing to wipe the bug juice from their bills by rubbing their beaks against branches (like men dabbing their mouths with napkins after getting up from the table). Towhees were hopping all around us, scratching through the cedar duff for pill bugs, pecking, pecking, pecking, and still the vireo stayed right there on that branch, turning its head sideways at us and singing, and Grandfather made one deep sound in his throat-like a stone being rolled away-and then he began to sing back to the bird, not just imitating the warbler's call, but singing a whole warbler song, making up warbler sentences, warbler declarations. Other warblers came in from out of the brush and surrounded us, and still Grandfather kept whistling and trilling. More birds flew in. Grandfather sang to them, too. With high little sounds in his throat, he called in the mourning doves and the little Inca doves that were starting to move into this country, from the south, and whose call I liked very much, a slightly younger, faster call that seemed to complement the eternity-becking coo of the mourning dove. Grandfather sang until dark, until the birds stopped answering his songs and instead went back into the brush to go to roost, and the fireflies began to drift out of the bushes like sparks and the coyotes began to howl and yip. Grandfather had long ago finished all the tea, sipping it between birdsongs to keep his voice fresh, and now he was tired, too tired to even fold the umbrella. .... I was afraid that with the miracle of birdsong, it was Grandfather's last night on earth-that the stars and the birds and the forest had granted him one last gift-and so I drove slowly, wanting to remember the taste, smell, and feel of all of it it, and to never forget it. But when I stopped the truck he seemed rested, and was in a hurry to get out and go join Father, who was sitting on the porch in the dark listening to one of the spring-training baseball games on the radio.

Nevertheless, making up twisted stories was what she was all about, and really, the only thing she was good at. As well as keeping something from others is also what she was about to. Then one day it all changed, I got a knock on my front door, and by the time I got there, the woman was gone. They're sitting on my doorstep as my granddaughter… there she was alive in my sight. She was seven years old at that time; I recall that she was completely nude crying on my porch, and all she had on was Lily’s other childhood ribbon in her hair. Then when I saw the ribbon, I knew what happened. Then she leaped into my arms, and it was love for me from that point on! I remember that Kristen had smashed fingers, and cut up legs, they used a taser gun on her… as well as her butt and vulva were bleeding from being chewed, fondled, and penetrated repeatedly. She was sold many times by Ava and was used as a slave for others' thrills. She had to have virginity restoration surgery to regain her innocence so that someday she can be deflowered to whom she wants. She was only seven years old when the doctors put her under to do that, yet it was the right thing to do, for her. The doctor, Dr. Fennel, said that he never saw anything like what he saw with her in his whole time in practice. I did not care how much it cost, I knew what it was like to have that taken away and I did not want that for her to go through in her life.

I ran my hands through her hair, locking my eyes on hers. “Emma, babe, you’re it for me. I didn’t wake up to my feelings for you as early as you did for me, but they’ve always been there. I am not looking for some fast lay here or a short relationship. When I say you’re it for me, I mean it. I mean that in the way that I want you to think about selling your house because I have zero desire to sleep without you even for one night.” She gasped and I grinned, pressing a kiss to her forehead before continuing. “I mean that in the way that one day soon, I’ll be talking to your dad to see if he’s cool with me becoming officially part of your family. Then I’ll need to talk to you about whether you want a big wedding or a small one. I mean that in the way that we’ll need to talk about how many kids we’re looking to put on this earth. And I mean that in the way that in fifty years, I hope you’re by my side, sitting in rockers on the front porch of my grandparents’ home, which would be our home, as we look back over the amazing life we’ve had. So when I say you’re it for me, Emma, I mean you are it.

What is it, exactly, that I want? I’m here for three months, then I’ll go back to real life in the States. This can only be a temporary thing, a brief affair with a beautiful stranger to be remembered fondly when I’m sitting in my rocking chair on the front porch of the old folks’ home.

Adults play, too (or should). When your kid sees you and a friend sitting in a lawn chair in your front yard or backyard, or on your porch or sidewalk, chatting, laughing, and enjoying yourselves over the beverage of your choice, you’re modeling for your kid that a joyful life includes relaxation and hanging out with friends. Adult play also includes the various hobbies and things we do “for ourselves” or “just for fun.” Let your kids see you tinker in the garage, practice your guitar, roll a skein of yarn, work a thousand-piece jigsaw puzzle, or whatever it is you do that constitutes fun in your own life. (And if you’re thinking, “What fun?” take notice of that and do something about it.)

I got up to go on some pretext and she accompanied me to the stoop. I said goodbye on the top step and then jumped down by the side with a prayer in my heart that she’d come a step or two down, and she did. There she stood, her hips on a level with my mouth; in a moment my hands went up her dress, the right to her sex, the left to her bottom behind to hold her. The thrill as I touched her half-fledged sex was almost painful in intensity. Her first movement brought her sitting down on the step above me and at once my finger was busy in her slit. “How dare you!” she cried, but not angrily. “Take your hand away!” “Oh, how lovely your sex is!” I exclaimed, as if astounded. “Oh, I must see it and have you, you miracle of beauty!” and my left hand drew down her head for a long kiss while my middle finger continued its caress. Of a sudden her lips grew hot and at once I whispered, “Won’t you love me, dear? I want you so: I’m burning and itching with desire. (I knew she was!) Please; I won’t hurt you and I’ll take care. Please, love, no one will know,” and the end of it was that right there on the porch I drew her to me and put my sex against hers and began the rubbing of her tickler and front part of her sex that I knew would excite her. In a moment she came and her love—dew wet my sex and excited me terribly; but I kept on frigging her with my manroot while restraining myself from coming by thinking of other things, till she kissed me of her own accord and suddenly moving forward pushed my prick right into her pussy . .

Sitting at Night on the Front Porch" I’m here, on the dark porch, restyled in my mother’s chair. 10:45 and no moon. Below the house, car lights Swing down, on the canyon floor, to the sea. In this they resemble us, Dropping like match flames through the great void Under our feet. In this they resemble her, burning and disappearing. Everyone’s gone And I’m here, sizing the dark, saving my mother’s seat.

It means, I want to have more babies with you. I want to go on vacations with you. I want to cook meals in this kitchen and do stupid mundane shit like clean the fucking house together. I want your clothes with mine in the fucking laundry. I want to laugh and cry together. I want to hold you every night when you sleep. I want to kiss you goodnight and good morning. I want to make love to you slow and fuck you hard. I want to sit out on the front porch and rock on the swing. I want, not only to grow old with you, but to live life with you. I want it all.

And he said... ...apathy will leave man sitting alone on his front porch.

The days were growing shorter, and oil was too expensive to use often, so after dinner James and I would sit on the front porch of our cabin until dusk and talk about his work at the store, the people he’d seen during the day, and our dreams for our life. On Saturdays he played baseball. He still had hopes of a professional career. It was 1906 and another league, the American, had been formed to compete with the National. Baseball was sweeping the country. They’d even begun forming teams all the way across the ocean, in Europe.

One day you’ll sit with your partner on the porch, sipping lemonade, listening to music, and watching kids play in the front yard and you whisper to your partner, ‘Want to eat pizza?

We followed him to a covered veranda. In America, we would call that a lemonade porch, however, in South Africa, they call it a stoep. A meeting place located outside the front of the home where friends and family can gather, and one can watch the rising or the setting of the sun in the cozy spot simply called a stoep. The stoep projected a natural ambience of peace and harmony, as a light breeze filled the space with its woodsy fragrance of pine and other natural fragrances inspired by the area’s shrubbery. It almost felt like it was hypnotizing one into a deeper state of tranquility, a state of existence that celebrated the quiet pockets of solitude where a richer from of living is housed. It made one slouch a little more meaningfully and relax the muscles of your body a little more conscientiously, as you let go of one’s innate need to think – to think to the point of hyper focusing on the meaningless details of life, for example, the incessant need to make every moment in life count… Yet, the stoep’s lesson of deeper living is simply the gift of becoming reacquainted with the joy of just being – open yet connected to now, without a higher purpose beyond that. Sometimes, the greatest gift that we can give ourselves is just to sit in the rawness of the moment without any outcome or intention in mind – except, to breathe in the life of the area around us. That is where my afternoon’s lesson ended, knowing that a stoep is a space where quality of human connection is made with or without the presence of any audience because it’s that space that celebrates the stillness of nothing and yet everything simultaneously, or in the words of Rumi: “In order to understand the dance, one must be still. And in order to truly understand the stillness, one must dance.” In South Africa that concept is lovingly called…Die Stoep, a space of possibility.

This [sand-dollar hunting] had become one of our rituals together, and though she would search for other varieties of shells when I was out of town or unable to see her, she would wait until I appeared on her front porch before setting off to extract these mute delicate coins from their settings in the sand. At first, we had collected only the larger specimens, but gradually as we learned what was rare and to be truly prized, we began to gather only the smallest sand dollars for our collection. Our trophies were sometimes as small as thumbnails and as fragile as contact lenses. Annie Kate collected the tiniest relics, round and cruciform and white as bone china when dried of sea water, and placed them in a glass-and-copper cricket box in her bedroom. Often we would sit together and admire the modest splendor of our accumulation. At times it looked like the coinage of a shy, diminutive species of angel. Our quest to find the smallest sand dollar became a competition between us, and as the months passed and Annie Kate grew larger with the child, the brittle, desiccated animals we unearthed from the sand became smaller and smaller. It was all a matter of training the eye to expect less.

storm clouds in the distance. sitting on the front porch smiling. knowing soon the seeds he had. planted very soon he knew all the. work that he has put into the fields. so long as he tended to these. fields uncertain if he had tended to these fields many. a year has these fields been. baren no matter how he tented the filled. nothing would grow till now the storm in the distance. will bring a great flood yet with the proper. aeration systems the fields will survive. and fliers and all the work will take fruit at long last.

Truman Capote said that he learned how to write a story not from reading but from sitting on his aunts' front porch in Alabama and listening to them tell stories. This was my earliest education in the art of storytelling too.

It’s sort of like not being able to enjoy sitting on your front porch anymore because it totally reeks of something foul out there. You

I can't wait to sit on the front porch with my book and a hot cup of coffee.

Home, I know, is right in this moment—in this body. We have houses everywhere. So I keep my bags packed, to make me resourceful such that I can make magic wherever I am. I let go of my mother’s hand. I go off to school. I go to work. I go out onstage. I leave home, over and over again, and then I come back. I sit on that porch, waiting for my father, knowing that he will never come, and then I let him go, time after time. I say goodbye. How could he be so cruel as to leave me waiting there on that stoop? But I project onto him the consciousness that I have now. I would never make my child wait for me on the front porch—it would be cruel, and I know better. But he didn’t know any better. It never would have occurred to him, because he wasn’t awake. Unlike my mother, who saw me, my father could not. The number one evil that we face is unconsciousness. And now that I am older, I understand the wisdom that was always waiting for me, so simple and so obvious but so hard to learn— His loss.

Grandma likes to sit on the top step of our front porch and water the flowers and fall asleep in the sun. She tilts her head way back to feel the warm sun on her face. The instant she falls asleep she loses her grip on the hose and it flips all over the place and then she knows she's had a nap and also completed a household task.