Last Saturday, I got to check an item off my to do list. I wanted all-weather black chairs for our back porch. The style I liked, based on my online tour of possibilities, required a trip to IKEA. As the nearest one is 25 miles away, completing this mission was not something I looked forward to.

But I found what I was looking for. The chairs in Aisle 40 Bin 36 actually looked like their pictures online. They even came assembled (Hooray!). I somehow maneuvered them into my sedan and zealously tore off their protective sleeves as soon as I got them home.

I arranged the four chairs around our rectangular black metal and glass table on our rear deck. They looked great! I was thrilled. Along with a small cushioned bench and round glass table which held a couple plants, the space was starting to look very inviting. Once we installed our outdoor speakers to the soffit of our upstairs tenants’ deck, I figured, we’d be ready for al fresco entertaining or easy to take mini-vacations, an important stress reliever, from my work-at-home routine.

We had Paul and Doug over for dinner on Thursday and enjoyed fruit and cookies around the table. John’s mother, Dee, has been visiting from California and, supplied with a gently pre-read Tribune, has taken to having her morning coffee there.

It’s a real city porch. It has a sturdy, unfinished, urban feel. It’s not a Field of Dreams, Iowa farmhouse wraparound style of porch. It’s compact, economical in the space it occupies. But it provides everything we need. It overlooks our proportionately compact yard and garage. It’s nice to sit on the porch during the day, but I especially like to sit on one of our new chairs after dark.

It’s funny that I should think about a porch like this as emblematic of city living and that I should think about the single, curlicue fluorescent light as some sort of home beacon. But, some evenings, John and I will just sit at the table under this light. Maybe John will be enjoying his one-a-day cigarette or we’ll each be sipping a glass of wine. We’ll tune in to the sounds of the block; the pa-ping pa-pinging call of the Mexican paleteros pushing their Popsicle carts down the street, the zz—zzzz sound of moths frying as they hurl themselves like kamikaze pilots into the illumined bulb, the swishing mechanical echo of the sprinkler.

And I’ll think about how the commuter train is only two blocks away, the Jerusalem Liquor Store and Andy’s Fruit Ranch even closer. I’ll think about the little rectangular lot that is ours and the three foot high metal fence separating us from our neighbors on either side. When we sit under our porch light, we can’t help but see our tenants when they come home for the evening. We’ll exchange pleasantries with Joanna when she comes home from work (usually from band practice or from a play in which she’s been performing) or with Brantley after he has returned from a falafel run…and I’ll feel a wonderful sense of place; of belonging to a place, to a block, to a neighborhood.

Feeling safe and at home in the middle of things without feeling the pressure of being surrounded is no small thing.