Pandemia and the PORCH

Today, sitting, yep, on the porch, I began to remember other porches and the magic they provide of simply opening a door and entering an entirely new and different state of mind.  

In the house, I had bounced from constantly running news programs covering the latest police murder of yet another African American man.  Rayshard Brooks had fallen asleep in the drive thru lane of a Wendy's fast food joint.  

When the police came, things appeared to be civil until the police attempted to arrest Brooks and it turned into a three man wrestling match.  Brooks got a taser from one of the police and he ran for it.  I am certain he suspected that taser was going to be used on him, so he grabbed it and ran for his life, but the policeman shot him dead.

While his life ebbed away, the policemen put on rubber gloves and collected their shell casings.  If that isn't callous disregard for life, what is?  

I have seen this before, in World War II movies, this callous disregard for whatever people have been designated as victims - Jews, women, homosexuals, immigrants, homeless people.  

My heart sank.  Then I got up, opened the door and sat on the porch.  Suddenly it was quiet except for birds singing and the voices of children playing in some farther off yard.  That quickly the world changed.

It reminded me of a balcony porch I once had back in 1974, on the back of a third floor apartment in an adapted old Victorian three story house.  The balcony was part of the wooden fire escape but it was so high it was in the tree canopy, like an attached tree house.  I can still feel the sensations of the cool fresh, perfumed air of the leafy bower.  

And that reminded me of the veranda in the 1980's of my parents mountainside house in West Virginia.  There you could escape the clamor of family life and simply become part of the pasture, the trees catching the sunlight and bouncing it around, the fragrance of the green world, the cool breath of tree cleaned air.

Porches, porticoes, verandas, balconies, all these little escapes into paradise from the interior world of the dwelling.  The pandemic has forced me to spend previously unimagined amounts of free time on the porch.  That has been a gift, that change of state of mind that is provided by a little escape into the trees and shrubs, the flowers and birds, the soft earth of the outdoors.  Sometimes you get so busy, you forget that such a gift exists, right outside the living room door.  

Happy trails, whatever kind they may be.
Jo Ann