Post-Pandemic Porch Sitting

 

An unexpected consolation during and after the recent Plague, and associated Lockdown, has been from sitting in a west-facing porch: not smugly I hope; just very lucky compared to those confined indoors elsewhere. Mountain views are illuminated variously by the morning sun, by stunning sunsets, or storm clouds and lightning.

“Go west, life is peaceful there; go west, in the open air; go west, where the skies are blue” sang The Village People, the Pet Shop Boys, and more recently the Pet Shop Boys on stage with some other “pobl y pentref” [people of the village], Côr y Brythoniaid (a male-voice choir from Blaenau Ffestiniog; link to video below). After some gruelling times over the years working in health care and faux academia, we didn't need to be told more than once.

Originally the song “Go West”(1979) urged gay men [mostly] to seek a more open and inclusive community in California. Long before that, the idea of “going west” seemed synonymous with the “white flight” of people escaping from a perceived threat from ethnic diversity in American inner cities. This side of the Atlantic, a 2014 promotional video for Cor y Brythoniaid singing “Go West” showed the choir sitting atop a London bus before boarding a train from Euston to North West Cymru. Whatever the intention in using this filming location, it appears to me simultaneously an invitation and criticism for those who would claim the west of Cymru as their exclusive playground. Indeed the surprising overall vote in Cymru in favour of Brexit (2016) (but not in Gwynedd) has been attributed in part to those from an English “white flight”.

The porch (veranda; stoop) is just big enough to sit in, eat, drink and socialise. And with a judiciously positioned trellis, it could be a balcony, situated well above the road outside. Red geraniums on the trellis add to the illusion. Many “holidaymakers” (strange label that, rather like those “revellers” beloved of news media) take photographs of the “quaint locals” as they pass, particularly when the weather is warm enough for us to eat outside in the evening sun. “Look at those strange people eating in their porch” they might say. We were asked one evening, by one passer-by "Do you actually live in that house?", as if expecting all the houses in the row to be holiday homes.

I am wondering if there is something peculiarly AngloSaxon in an aversion to sitting outside the front of the house. My limited experience of southern Scotland many years ago was of neighbours gathering on their front steps to pass the time of day over breakfast “morning rolls”. A nation that seems to be more proudly comfortable with itself and with its social housing, which is where I was staying at the time. Indeed, many English homes seem to shut themselves away from the outside world, particularly those of the middle classes. Grand houses, even those with stunning views from the front elevation, so often have no facility to enjoy these. No bench, no table, no chairs. Is outside furniture at the front frowned upon, just as uncovered table legs were seen as indecent in Victorian times? A cursory glance at property for sale on estate agents' websites seems to bear this out. And is sitting in the porch an inclusive or an excluding activity?

"Porch sitting”, as a “thing”, arose in the USA. While it has a random, even anarchist non-organisation, it is also an emotive subject for some, as in this anonymous observation:

“...every time I go outside, the neighbor's adult son is sitting on the front porch just doing nothing. The next house always has two or three guys sitting on their porch. The rest of the neighborhood is fine. I really don't get this behavior. It makes my neighborhood look bad. You have the right to do what you want on your property, but its making the neighborhood look like the ghetto...”

Porch sitting is ethnically differentiated, and class delineated. To sit in front of your house is associated with Black America, but also with white “trailer-trash”, hillbillies, banjos and rocking chairs. Various factions have tried to claim porch sitting as their own, from red-necked gun-wielding Republicans to those who see in porch-sitting a return to mutual community living.

Across the Atlantic, just this side of the Irish Sea, the trellis disguises the road outside, and hides a muddy field opposite. What is left is the mountain view, and the opportunity to meet friends old and new who may be passing. The view itself is ever-changing. Google Lens and similar apps would “see” it and, depending on the light and the weather, interpret it as a multitude of locations around the world, from Austria to Costa Rica, India, Jamaica, Japan, Portugal, Peru and more. The app often finds views from "exotic" hotel balconies where we can imagine ourselves at that moment. Sustainable travel indeed. Thanks to lockdown we could be anywhere in the world without ever leaving home. It just needs the appropriate cuisine, music and wine.

“Sometimes I sits and thinks, and sometimes I just sits” (AA Milne). Sometimes I sit here and write blogs. And yes, I do have a rocking chair and can play the banjo a little. But not outside. The neighbours might complain.

LINKS

Festival No.6 presents the Brythoniaid Male Voice Choir - 'Go West' - YouTube

On the Front Porch, Black Life in Full View | The Independent | The Independent

http://cambriancrumbs.blogspot.com/2023/08/where-am-i.html

White flight - Wikipedia

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Porch_sitting