In southern states, porches are known as verandas. I’ve always dreamed of sipping a mint julep on one of these, or under a white- pillared colonnade with sweet magnolias dropping petals at my feet. Porch life seems to thrive where life is slower. Or does life slow down where porch life thrives?
In fast-paced Southern California, a real front porch is as rare as neighborliness. Although nearly every house has a patio or open courtyard to the rear, these do not reflect the community lifestyle of the Mexican culture from which they are adapted. In Mexico as in Spain, piazzas open to the front are places where villagers socialize and the party happens just because someone drops by.
In any state one may find swooning porches, sagging porches, or sleeping porches. They may be a wraparound style, screened in, covered, or open to the sky. However they’re made, their primary purpose is to offer a vantage point from which to observe, muse, welcome others, and engage in the shelter that is human conversation.
My parents’ family gatherings on Sunday after church always happened on the cement porch stoop. Aunts lay dish after dish potluck style there. Uncles started hand cranking the vanilla ice cream. I al*ays liked sitting on the lid of the ice-cream freezer, a thick towel serving as a seat, to steady the cold metal container nestled in the tubs of ice. My cousins took turns with the wooden handle while Grandma busied herself setting ironstone bowls and silver-plated cutlery, fetching more rock salt for the ice, and fretting that the little kids might get hurt on the merry-go-round Grandpa had made.