The Porch

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Happy Friday, ladies and germs.

You’re a disparate lot. You’re friends, a former professor, my parents, and other family members scattered across the states. It feels like we’ve formed a secret club: one in which we meet every Friday, and I’m the one who’s primarily talking. This wouldn’t happen in real life. I can be quiet in large groups, and some of you are excessively chatty. I have a feeling that if we ever did throw a giant party (post-pandemic, of course), you’d all get along great. If someone has an idea for a secret password, I’m all ears.

Today I want to talk about my porch.

Back in May, I moved from a small studio in Kitsilano to a yellow house near Commercial Drive here in Vancouver. There are many things to love about this new house. We have a dishwasher! (This is the first time I’ve had a working dishwasher since I lived with my parents!) We have tons of pantry space! A washer and dryer — that aren’t coin operated! A clawfoot bathtub!

We have a lush backyard with patio furniture. We have a small lawn that I mow once every couple of weeks with a janky push-mower. We have neighbours whose names I know, who keep me updated on their kids, who invite me over to their backyard for socially distant margaritas and tell me how this street has changed over the past ten years.

And we have a porch: a wonderful, glorious porch. Coming from my tiny, patio-free apartment unit, the porch was a novelty. I’ve spent hours sitting there. I drink my coffee on it in the mornings, and a glass of wine on it in the evenings. I read there, write there, or watch people walk by. The appeal doesn’t just lie in having a chance to be outside after months of indoor confinement: there is, in some small way, an opportunity for human connection. Or maybe voyeurism. I’m not sure.

Regardless, it’s nice.

They say write what you know, but for all the fancy schooling I’ve been lucky enough to have and the smart friends I’ve acquired over the years, I feel like I know next to nothing. But after a couple of months of living in this house, I do know this porch. I know the rings left from past mugs of coffee, the cobwebs that collect dirt and leaves in the corner. I know Nick and Palomino and Odee and Monica, all of whom I’ve met while sitting on one of the red chairs.

I know what I sound like. I’m a millennial overly-romanticizing the domicile she just rediscovered. (Next week’s newsletter: the glory of statement pillows! Then the week after: poetry inspired by my compost bin!) Perhaps the home-bound lifestyle is getting to me, and every attempt at a new vegan recipe should be understood as a cry for help.

Or perhaps I’m just a product of my generation and the time I’m living in. I graduated high school in 2010, only a couple years after the 2008 recession hit. That recession (as opposed to the impending, apparently much scarier recession that’s happening now that I’ve graduated from a masters program — yay, 2020!) hit millennials hard.

Amelia Hall at The Guardian actually wrote about this in her May opinion piece, “Covid-19 is domesticating millennials. Who thought that would be possible?” Rather-patronizing-headline-that-sounds-like-something-my-dad-would-write aside, Hall describes how economic instability informed a generation’s decline in a well-cultivated home life. “Coming out of a recession, trading the domestic for the corporate seemed right,” she wrote. “Our instinct […] is to work harder, to place more merit on our ability to earn, all while drowning ourselves in Seamless takeout. But what if we’re wrong?”

“Perhaps the real lesson of quarantine is that home life matters,” Hall wrote. 

And like, ugh, what a sappy remark: an un-ironic version of the whole “maybe the real treasure was the friends we made along the way” meme. But I just wrote 600 words about my porch for a newsletter, and you presumably read it — so who are we to judge?

Have a good weekend, friends and fam.

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Other things to read

• “Sweatpants forever: how the fashion industry collapsed” by Irina Aleksander (at The New York Times)

• "Aminé is Portland proud. But he doesn’t recognize his hometown anymore." by Jordan Coley (at GQ)

Something to watch

• "Remembering With A Twist- A Jojo Rabbit & The Book Thief Video Essay” by Ladyknightthebrave (on Youtube)

Things to listen to

• "Sodade" by Cesária Évora, whose career inspired Belgian artist Stromae to write the song “ave cesária” (which might have the most adorable music video I’ve ever seen)

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PS dad sorry I made a joke at your expense, I love you. I love you, too, mom.