Stoop Sitting
And why it shouldn't be a thing of the past
I remember the first time my wife saw me do it. She thought there was something wrong with me.
“What are you doing?” she asked, standing at the open storm door, staring at the back of my head.
The dog and I had taken a seat on the outside stoop at the entrance to our home. It was a cool, clear spring morning. I held a mug of coffee while the dog and I together surveyed the street, the neighborhood, the birds in the big trees in the parkway.
“Just sitting,” I said.
My wife apparently didn’t come from a neighborhood of stoop sitters.
“Out here? We have a wonderful patio in the back, you know,” she said, a bit sarcastically.
“No. It’s okay. I like this.”
“Just sitting out here on the stoop?”
“Yep. Just out here on the stoop.”
A big part of my childhood and through my teenage years took place on the front stoop of my parents’ home. On Saturday mornings I waited for my friends there to come out to play. I listened to baseball on a transistor radio on the stoop. I ate popsicles there. From the stoop, I watched my father in the driveway wash his big old Chevy. When I was in high school, I waited on the stoop for my neighbor friend so we could walk to the school bus stop together. When I was in college and returned home for the weekend, you’d find me on a Sunday night, sitting on that stoop, waiting for my ride back to campus.
But today, it seems no one sits on the stoop anymore.
“I just think it’s kind of odd,” my wife continued. “Do you ever see anyone else in our neighborhood sitting like this?”
“No. Not really, I guess. But I like it.”
My wife smiled and gave me my space. I’m sure she went away wondering.
For nearly an hour, I sat quietly on the stoop. Waving once to a neighbor on the other side of the street who had been out walking her dog, and smiling at the cat in the big picture window of another home nearby. The cat probably was as perplexed as my wife was.
Growing up, nearly everyone in my neighborhood sat on the stoop. It was a kind of unspoken invitation to say hello, to talk, to gather, to maybe share a couple of beers, have a smoke. It was the equivalent of being “active” on social media today. You’re there, online, waiting to connect with someone, to communicate. Back then, it was just a matter of taking a seat outside and waiting for the world to come to you. And it nearly always did.
Yes, things change. Times change. Technology, culture, social norms, priorities change. That’s the evolution of societal progress. I don’t wish to make any silly nostalgic claim that “things were better back then” or to grouse about how modern life has destroyed our humanity. Goodness knows I don’t want to come off like some grouchy older guy, grumbling about how the world was a better place when we were all out there stoop sitting.
But I do want to suggest that maybe stoop sitting could help pry ourselves from our phones and laptops, get us outside, and maybe, just maybe help us get to know the people who live right next door.
Yes, you could label all this talk as one of those tired old rants about giving up social media or see it as a fervent call to rid us of our constant urge to check email. You could see it as my big push to force you to step out into the sun and maybe actually talk to someone. A real person. Right there in front of you. Well, that would be nice, wouldn’t it? But my stoop sitting is really not about all that.
My stoop sitting is an act of unadorned relaxation, the simple act of taking a seat for no particular reason at all. It’s the fresh air and the lack of any serious intention that gives it its elevated place on the scale of meditative acts. Stoop sitting is exactly what many of us might need, a kind of head-clearing, soul-resetting respite.
Go sit on the stoop. Wherever that is for you. And if you see me out there, give a little wave my way.
David W. Berner is the author of several books of fiction and memoir. You can follow him by signing up for the free monthly newsletter at www.davidwberner.com. His memoir, Daylight Saving Time (Collective Ink Books) will be released this summer and is now available for pre-sale.
I grew up in a typical Chicago red brick bungalow with a generous stoop. All the houses on our block had them. We sat and chatted, played board games, and even played "off-the-wall" by throwing a rubber baseball against the steps. Now we live in a house with a nice front porch. We sit out there with a mug of coffee or a glass of wine and chat with the local birder about the Cooper's Hawks, or another neighbor about the pitiful state of Chicago sports teams, or another neighbor about neighborhood issues. Feels very similar to stoop sitting days, except I have to admit I do take my phone, and sometimes my laptop out there!
Lovely!