My Screened Porch

In the midst of the pandemic, we are all looking for little moments of joy, for something to take our minds off the horrible statistics and other depressing news stories. I’ve never been an outdoorsy person, but I’ve found that spending time with nature has been a help over the past few months.

I’ve taken walks along the Missouri River, in local parks, and in my neighborhood. I’ve watched the trees go from bare to burgeoning with leaves. I’ve inspected wildflowers that many would call weeds, but I think they’re pretty.

And I’ve spent hours on my screened porch, which I’ve mentioned before. In spring, I started taking The Wall Street Journal crossword puzzle out to the porch after lunch. I still do that many days, though the heat of midday has sometimes pushed me back inside.

In the evenings after dinner, I often go sit on the porch. Even when the temperatures have been above 90 degrees, I know it will improve when the sun lowers behind the house next door. (That house cost us some of our view, but has provided shade and neighbors. There’s a trade-off for everything.)

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I try to stay out until it’s too dark to see. I watch the clouds as they change colors from white to pastel to burning neons to gone. Every night it happens, yet every night is different.

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As the sky grows dim, I wait for the golfers to pass and leave the fairway open for the deer. Sometimes the deer come, most times they don’t, but I know they are there.

One evening last week, I sat on the porch and watched a doe and her two fawns peek out from the trees across the fairway. They didn’t venture much into the open, choosing to stay near the protection of the trees. But they stayed for about twenty minutes. The doe grazed while the fawns scampered near her. Then I took my eyes off them for a moment, and when I turned back they had disappeared.

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The next morning, when I raised my bedroom shade, I saw two adult deer with the two fawns. They were braver in the morning, until a golf course maintenance vehicle sent them running. The maintenance man didn’t want to chase them—he even stopped to watch them as I did—but he had his chores to do, and that meant driving down the fairway behind the deer.

Though the deer are the most noticeable wildlife I see from my porch, the birds are more ubiquitous. Hawks. Doves. Killdeer. Robins. And I hear the cicadas and crickets.

Once I saw a turtle in our yard, and another time a coyote trotted down the golf cart path like he owned it. When I stood on the porch to watch him, the coyote paused for a moment to watch me back. But clearly, he was not concerned, and soon continued on his journey.

I’ve had a few frogs and flies and moths join me on the porch. I send the frogs back outside the screen and dispose of the flies and moths peacefully if I can (though if they don’t learn their lesson quickly, they don’t last long in this world).

The only creatures that I want gone immediately are the spiders. A few have built webs too high for me to reach. I watch their acrobatic maneuvering, but that doesn’t change my mind—if I can’t reach them with the broom, I spray them. There is a limit to the joy that communing with nature can bring, and spiders cross the line. I can’t watch the deer with the arachnids looming overhead.

What moments of joy have you found in the pandemic?