On The Books

"Mama used to roll her hair, back before the central air. We'd sit outside and watch the stars at night. She'd tell me to make a wish, and I'd wish we both could fly. Don't think she's seen the sky, since we got the satelite dish"--James McMurtry, L

Maybe it's the houses we've been looking at lately - who's flyers boast of property porches like an old time slice of American pie - but I've been thinking a lot about the lost allure of front porches in stoping to consider how much less we are apt to actually use them, to sit languid and content (in any form really) on a front porch stoop, or the back lawn like we did when I was growing up. Which makes me worried that maybe we're on our way to forgetting how to be slow and still for absolutely no reason other than being slow and still.

Fiona Appple share the same nostalgia it in her song, Waltz. A line that stuck with me the first time I heard it.

If you don't have a date
Celebrate
Go out and sit on the lawn
And do nothing
'Cause it's just what you must do
Nobody does it anymore - Waltz 


And if you care to read more on it I reposted an article on The Ma Books I found scouring old college thesis papers on the subject late last night. There were quite a few to choose from. Turns our more people than I think realized are missing time spent on or around the front stoop attached to the golden age of a slower American mindset. Pre iphone, pre Netflix temptations.

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