Our First Porch Party
My wife and I moved to Indianapolis from Chattanooga, TN in May of 2014 just a couple of weeks after our college graduation. We heaved our very few belongings into a 500 square foot apartment in Fall Creek Place and began our life together in our new city. It wasn’t long before we realized that it’s hard to be hospitable with just 500 square feet of living space. What I mean to say is that, while it was undoubtedly the desire of our hearts to open up our home to others, our apartment’s small quarters worked against that desire.
As we neared the end of our first year in Indy, and the end of the lease on our apartment, we had one priority: more space for more hospitality. In our search, we came across the left side of a 1,200 square foot duplex (with a great front porch) in the Mapleton-Fall Creek neighborhood. The best part though was that our good friends (another young married couple who also desired to be more hospitable) were able to move in on the other side of the duplex.
Now that the four of us had moved in to our new home, the stage for an ideal summer porch party was set. We had the desire, we had the porch, and boy did we ever have the food! After sending out our invites, getting busy in the kitchen, and setting up our porch, we enjoyed the company of good friends and family out in the unusually sunny weather.
You could say that our porch party was over a year in the making. Our time out on our porch showed us, and more importantly showed the world, that though we may feel lonely at times, community can meet us in our loneliness. Even on a front porch.