Okay, so whenever I read home-makeover kinds of articles about houses with screened porches, the makeover almost always begins with getting rid of the screened porch. Look how much more light and airy! Look how open! Look how now there's nothing to stop the bugs getting in and the dog running away!
Apparently in makeoverland the screened porch is a liability. For us, however, it was the number-one selling point. We would have bought a cardboard box to live in, as long as it had a screened porch. That this one came with an indoors attached was a bonus. Never mind that right now, if you're on this porch, you have to be careful where you step, unless you want a tour of the crawlspace. It's still the best room in the house.
A Screened Porch in the Country
All of them are sitting
Inside a lamp of coarse wire
And being in all directions
Shed upon darkness,
Their bodies softening to shadow, until
They come to rest out in the yard
In a kind of blurred golden country
In which they more deeply lie
Than if they were being created
Of Heavenly light.
Where they are floating beyond
Themselves, in peace,
Where they have laid down
Their souls and not known it,
The smallest creatures,
As every night they do,
Come to the edge of them
And sing, if the can,
And if they can't, simply shine
Their eyes back, sitting on haunches,
Pulsating and thinking of music.
Occasionally, something weightless
Touches the screen
With its body, dies,
Or is unmurmuringly hurt,
But mainly nothing happens
Except that a family continues
To be laid down
In the midst of its nightly creatures,
Not one of which openly comes
Into the golden shadow
Where the people are lying,
Emitted by their own house
So humanly that they become
More than human, and enter the place
Of small, blindly singing things,
Seeming to rejoice
Perpetually, without effort,
Without knowing why
Or how they do it.
James Dickey
from Contemporary American Poetry
A. Poulin, ed.
Houghton Mifflin Company
1980
A golden evening to all.
15 comments:
Sally...I would love to have a screened-in porch. I would sleep there on hot summer nights.
I've entertained that thought! Actually, I'm surprised none of the kids has slept out here yet -- maybe its being on the front makes it feel too exposed, though in the summertime I'm not sure I'd care.
I will say that the first rule of a screened porch is that all members of a household under the age of ten WILL inevitably punch the screen to open the door, instead of pushing on the wood frame. You can't see it in the picture, but that screen door is an abuse victim if ever there were one.
Still, I love it. Sitting on it right now, drinking a glass of Moscato and watching my youngers scootering with their neighborhood friends across the street. Pretty darn close to heaven.
We have a screened in deck in the back, and it was the selling feature. Except for the copious amount of pollen right now, we do use it quite frequently.
Yours is just wonderful!
Thanks, Jenn. Like most of the house, it's a fabulous thing in need of repair, but right now we live on it as much as we can. I had visions of doing school on the porch in pretty weather, but for that we need a table out there, and we don't have one yet. The youngers and I do like to read on the porch, however.
During the nice weather, I keep both the front and kitchen (back) doors propped open for the breeze. It's nice to be able to do that and not be swarmed by bugs -- the kitchen has a screen door, and even though there are many security breaches in the front screens, fortunately bugs are pretty stupid about finding their way in through narrow spaces (which is why those fly traps with vinegar and cantaloupe in a plastic gallon jug with holes in it work -- flies follow the scent in, but then can't find their way out, even if you poke a thousand big holes in the sides of the jug).
I'd love a screened porch on the back, too. I really would sleep there in the summer!
When I first read this post I thought, really? people don't like screened porches? And then I was flipping through a renovation magazine and the first article was all about this big remodel where they took out the screened porch in favor of . . . a patio. That seems so much less pleasant though I'm sure it looks cuter in the photo spread. Crazy. I would love to have a porch like that. We're trying to figure out how we can make our 300 sq. ft. patio (which is our entire backyard) into a pleasant outdoor space.
Yeah, see? I get that a screened porch *looks* more closed in. It does obscure the house itself. But as a livable space, it wins hands-down over just about any other "outdoor room," at least in parts of the country where there are bugs.
We don't have a patio per se, though I've been working to make our back yard more livable this summer. We've mulched big areas of former bald spot under our huge pecan tree, and in one corner I've made a sitting area with a firebowl, which we love. Can't do that on a porch. On the other hand, to sit on the porch we don't have to douse ourselves with Off.
I would love a screened porch. They don't have them much round here. Though my sister-in-law in Maine has a nice one. For that matter I'd love to have a patio. Sadly we've been wanting to put one in for almost three years and still haven't been able to do so. Oh well maybe someday I can aspire to a nice coy porch like yours.
I've always loved them, and we added one to our house some years ago. Didn't know we were doing the Wrong Thing. After several years my wife started advocating to have it glassed in, because in our subtropical climate it and everything on/in it was constantly being covered with mildew. I resisted, but eventually she did it, of course, and she was right, at least the way she did it: basically it's glass-and-screen where there used to be screen, so we can open it up when we want to, but we can also heat and cool it. Sort of. The unit we bought to do that doesn't work too well.
I grew up with a room like that, glassed in by the former owners of our house. It was great, though frigid in winter, and I've always missed it.
My grandmother's house had a screened porch, and it substituted for the attic that I thought a grandmother ought to have. The furniture was all leftovers, with mysterious odds and ends in the drawers; the lilac bushes kept it cool and hid you from the view of people outside; the grownups hardly ever used it, so you could read undisturbed for hours. And yes, we did sleep there on hot summer nights, though those weren't too common in Vermont.
4:33 a.m. Is that accurate?
AMDG
Have been enjoying our screened-in porch before the sweltering weather hits. I added ours on while DH was in Afghanistan - didn't tell him about it until he hit American soil.
Just kind of snuck it on there, didja?
Janet: No. This blog has a time zone all its own.
After seeing your screened porch and reading the poem, I almost felt like going out and building one but I remembered that we've sold our house last year and getting a little too old to start building again if you know what I mean? :)
I'm happy for you and your family and may God grant you all many wonderful loving cool memories.
God Bless
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