Life lines by Susan A. Smith

I like words. I collect them the way some people collect salt and pepper shakers. One of my favorite words is "banister." It is such a neat word, it even has an alternative spelling: bannister. It also has a couple of different meanings. If you look it up, the first definition connects banister to stairs and staircases. Today, though, we're exploring a second meaning for banister - the railing around a porch, in fact.

I grew up with a porch and a banister. I think I'm a better person for it, too. I didn't just have a porch - I had a front porch, very important distinction. An interesting distinction, too, since our house didn't have a back porch or a side porch - just the front porch. Still, more often than not, we'd say, "Joey's out on the front porch," if anyone inquired about his whereabouts. We sat on the front porch, played on the front porch, sipped an iced tea on the front porch.

In the summer, the front porch was probably the most important room in the house. I had my birthday party on the front porch. I learned to shuffle cards and make a "bridge" with them on the front porch. My dad spent hours watching the world go by on the front porch. Truth to tell, he took many a good nap out there, too. My brothers tell me about sitting on the front porch with him talking about all sorts of things that fathers and sons talk about. And, of course, the front porch had a banister.

A banister is such an important adjunct to a porch. You can balance your soda can on it while you sit and read a book. You can prop your feet up on it while you sit in your favorite chair and read a book. You can lean your back on it when you and Trudy and Kaye and Mimi sit on the floor of the porch and play jacks. You can pretend you're in the circus, use the banister as a high wire, tippy-toe balance your way from one end to the other and scare the heck out of your mother. At Christmas, you can thread colored lights around the spokes of the banister. You can sit on it, lean on it, lean over it, get your foot caught between the wooden spokes of it.

Thinking about it now, I don't know if I'd be the same person I am today if I hadn't had that porch and that banister in my life. On the front porch, I could be out into the world but still protected by the banister. It made the transition from the safety and protection of childhood into the world so much more cozy and safe. Neighbors walked by and if someone was on the front porch they knew they could come up on the porch and have a little visit, share some gossip, maybe have a glass of lemonade. On the front porch I wasn't in the house but I wasn't quite yet in the world, either.

I'm back now, in the house with the front porch, after many decades. The front porch is still there. Sadly, the banister is gone. Tracking old photos, I think my dad must have taken it down in the 1960s. Such a long time ago, it seems. I miss that banister but I realize that I don't really need it. I still sit on the front porch, read the paper there, visit with the neighbors there and, something new, talk on my cell phone out there. On the front porch I'm out participating in the world but still happily at home.

It seems to me that folks don't use their front porches as much as they used to years ago. More often than not, there's no one sitting out on the porch when I go by. Even worse, some porches don't even have any chairs to sit on and relax. There's no one for me to wave to, no one out there to wave back. Unbelievable as it is to my way of thinking, some houses don't even have a front porch! I think homes need front porches and gliders and porch swings. If they have a banister, even better.

There is one more great thing about a porch - even if it's raining, you can be sitting outside watching the rain, and not get wet. What can be better on a summer day than sitting on the porch with a good book or a friend who's read one, watching the world, enjoying the sweet scent of a summer rain.

So, the banister on my porch is gone now - my protection from the world is missing. And that world is in such a rush these days. I make calls, tweet, twitter, IM and e-mail. Hurry, hurry, hurry. May I suggest my own antidote to balance all this out: reconnect with your porch or a friend or relative who has one.

Even if you don't have a porch you can make a pitcher of iced tea or lemonade. Sit yourself down, take a deep breath and enjoy the world just as it is. On the porch you may realize that you don't have to change the world, connect with it, talk to it or save it. With or without a banister - with or without a porch, for that matter - for a few moments savor your place in the world just as it is. Ahhhhhh ...

Smith may be reached at www.journeyintopower.com.