Whatever Happened to Sitting a While?
Updated: 21 minutes ago
Two chairs, a disappearing porch, and the conversations we’re missing.
“My uncle claims that architects got rid of front porches not for their looks but to discourage people from sitting around and talking and rocking. The disappearance of porches served to suppress reflection and conversation. There are no longer any gardens or rocking chairs; everything has become uncomfortable. They’ve set people in motion, always running, with no time to think.” ~ Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451
I keep thinking about an empty rocking chair.
Put one on a front porch and something changes. A house looks a little more welcoming. Someone might sit down. Someone walking past might stop. A conversation might begin without either person having planned it.
Add a second chair, and now we’re getting somewhere.
In Fahrenheit 451, published in 1953, Ray Bradbury imagines a society that has done away with front porches, gardens, and rocking chairs. Clarisse recalls her uncle’s explanation: these were places where people could linger, talk, and think. Their disappearance helped make room for a life of constant motion and diminishing reflection.
That's seriously disturbing.
How much of our own lives have we arranged around getting through the day, with precious little room left to experience it?
We can reach someone across the planet in seconds. With a few clicks we can pretty much learn everything about anything. Yet we may know very little about the person living across the street, or even next door.
A porch offers a modest invitation to change that.
"Come sit awhile. Tell me what’s happening in your life."
Or let’s watch the weather arrive and see what comes to mind.
There's something generous about a place where nothing needs to happen immediately.
“The aim of life is to live, and to live means to be aware joyously,
drunkenly, serenely, divinely aware.”
~ Henry Miller, The Wisdom of the Heart
We can find a similar invitation on a walk or hike.
Along a lake or ocean, through a park or into the woods, our worries begin to loosen their grip. A problem that occupied the whole room in our head becomes less significant beneath a much larger sky.
An ancient Juniper Tree has a way of plunging us into a new perspective... or a wild new consciousness. It's humbling to consider the elements these trees have endured - for centuries - yet they keep growing. I believe they have a lot to teach us.
Then someone comes along the trail. We exchange a greeting. Perhaps we stop to admire the tree, ask about the path ahead, or share something neither of us expected to say to a stranger.
For a few minutes, we belong to this same small fabric of the world.
There's evidence behind these everyday experiences. In one study, people who took a 90-minute nature walk reported less repetitive dwelling on troubling thoughts, while those who walked an urban route did not show the same improvement.
Another series of experiments found that walking helped people generate creative ideas.
Both studies suggest that stepping outside can change how we think.
And those passing conversations matter, too. Researchers Nicholas Epley and Juliana Schroeder found that commuters instructed to connect with a stranger reported more positive experiences than those instructed to remain disconnected, despite expecting otherwise. Sometimes we underestimate how welcome a little human connection will be. "Good for the soul" seems to be a reasonable way to put it.
The books I’m drawn to approach this aliveness from different angles. Andreas Weber’s The Biology of Wonder presents living beings as feeling, meaning-making participants in the world. It invites us to consider how much we miss when we treat life as machinery and ourselves as machines with schedules. Weber recognizes that the impulse to establish connections, to intermingle, to weave our existence poetically together with that of other beings is a foundational principle of reality.
Robert Macfarlane’s The Wild Places, with his search for wildness across Britain and Ireland, encourages us to step beyond the familiar and pay attention to what's alive around us. He reminds us to avoid things that dilute our sense of wonder.
And Mary Oliver saw the door to the woods in Upstream as the door to a temple. I understand that. Moving among ancient trees, I often find myself becoming more receptive to whatever deserves my attention. And I imagine what they might be trying to tell me.
A porch can offer that same welcome. A place to settle ourselves long enough for reflection, gratitude, and perhaps a conversation with others... or with a higher power.
I agree with Ray Bradbury, that a porch is a good place where attention can take root.
Of course, a couple rocking chairs can't manufacture friendship or enlightenment. We have to sit in it. Look around. Engage. Reflect.
Bob Beaudine (pictured above, on left) offers an interesting reason to leave a second chair open.
In his book 2 Chairs: The Secret That Changes Everything, Bob suggests we make time for a conversation with God: Two chairs. One for you, one for Him. An invitation to bring your questions and concerns, lose your ego, and listen.
There's something comforting about the image of two chairs in a living room, on a porch, beach or front lawn. We don’t have to arrive with everything figured out. We simply have to show up.
A porch makes room for slowing down, for reflection and connection. But it can be anywhere where we can hear ourselves think, and stay long enough to ask questions and listen.
Still, I'd like to see the porches come back. Real porches. Deep enough for chairs. At least two chairs. Welcoming enough for neighbors. Places where children can listen to stories and adults can remember they have stories worth telling. Or to have one for yourself and one representing God's presence... in order to quiet your mind, pray, and listen rather than trying to figure everything out alone.
It brings me back to what troubles me about Bradbury’s disappearing porches. When we lose places to pause, what conversations go missing? With our neighbors? With ourselves? With God?
Let’s leave one chair open.
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Note: Love & Gratitude to Bob Beaudine for being a guiding light for so many people, myself included. Be sure to check out his website and his latest book: A Cup Short of Greatness / Not Yours To Fill.
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All photographs by Michael Kennedy (unless otherwise noted) / BlueWolfGallery.com
I’m Michael Kennedy, a resident of Olympic Valley, CA (in photo above with Nicola and Boo). I’m a writer and photographer and I love exploring nature and getting lost along the way. We live in a world that demands our attention and I just want to say thank you for your attention. If you enjoyed this post, please share this with a friend. For more photos and stories visit BlueWolfGallery.com.
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