There was an unspoken, unwritten rule on my end of Penguin Street during Halloween.
I learned, as I’m sure all kids do, by mimicking the kids a year or two older. If the porch light was on, then you knocked on the door. If the porch light wasn’t on, you kept walking.
This wasn’t a malicious thing. Maybe the residents were out for the evening, or maybe they didn’t have any candy left, so it was easier to turn the porch light off.
Now, I’m the one with the porch light switch.
Every year on October 31, I turn on the porch light. I put out a bowl. Kids come up to my door, often with their parents hovering not too far behind, and ring my doorbell. Sometimes they ring it in groups, all clad in their Halloween costumes. Other times it’s a single child, a little scared, meeting a strange adult who is genuinely happy to see them.
All it takes is flipping a switch to show you’re part of this evening’s festivities. No signage or personal invitation is needed. The porch light on is enough.
What a gloriously simple thing a 40-watt light bulb can do.
In a time when many of the unwritten rules we once had with our neighbors are fading away, the porch light remains. Whether you’re 5 or 50, you know what the porch light means. And that, my friends, is pretty amazing. And in a world where people are becoming increasingly disconnected, how many symbols are left that we all understand?
I’ve thought a lot about this while putting this site together.
Since 2001, I’ve had some version of a personal website, but it was only after I realized just how addictive social media was designed to be and quit most of it that I really began to think of this site as a place of my own. I see this website as my home and this here homepage as my porch. That’s why you’ll see the “porch light’s on” at the bottom.
If social media lacks one thing, it’s a porch light. There it’s more of a megaphone, controlled by whoever is acting as the bouncer for whatever social venue you’re trying to utilize, and that bouncer is fickle or a fascist.
A porch light, though, is something you can control. And unlike a megaphone, it’s not meant to attract someone to you. Instead, it’s there to invite someone to come talk to you. Most won’t, and that’s okay.
But some will. And that’s what it feels like to me when I write a new essay here every Saturday. It’s a little like Halloween, when you turn the porch light on, not knowing exactly who will come up to trick-or-treat, hoping it’ll be someone you’ve seen before, but fully expecting mostly strangers. And no matter who it is, you want them to know the light is on for them.
There’s a benefit to these little moments with people you might not otherwise have met. A brief interaction with someone you may never see again can carry a tiny bit of joy.
Usually, by the time it’s close to 9, I’m ready to turn the light off. The trick-or-treaters have thinned out and the bowl is nearly empty.
But I’m ready to leave it on a little while longer this year. Maybe no one else will come by. Maybe one or two more stragglers will show up.
But this much I know: It’s a quiet street, and the light is on.
Be seeing you.
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There's a new essay every Saturday, and shorter notes during the week. If you want another one now, start here. Or I can send it Sunday morning along with whatever piled up. Same writing, less remembering.
Porch light's on either way.