a balcony is for: reflection/phone call/coming of age/epiphany/cry/smoke break/weather check/party escape/dramatic effect/to feel grand love for your city fill your heart/grief/hope/etc.

above: austin and lillie on the balcony at her old place for her moving out party. not sure which of our friends took this photo but it was likely theo. wonder what she just said here.

something about the limited space, the height, the seclusion –– a balcony serves as a container. for ideas, for conversation, for music.

cover: view from the balcony of my most recent apartment. massive (i mean like pacing-sized) and best view of dtla i ever had. balcony where i've felt the most hopeful and felt like i totally knew what the fuck i was doing.

balcony where i would begin my smoking habit that i have since soft quit and do not endorse. i think maybe i picked it up just to stand out there and enjoy the view and listen to the sundays and stay on the phone with my dad for longer. and record long voice memos to a long distance crush, and replay the ones she sent me over and over until they stopped coming.

where i listened to much of the music that was shared with me, and where i sequenced many playlists.

balcony where claudia imparted her wisdom to me once and we each shed a single tear. balcony where we could see austin and quinten laughing through the glass door even though we could not hear them over the din of everyone inside.

it's a special thing to see someone laughing and not hear them; your brain kinda has to make up the rest. you notice things –– the way people smile/throw their head back/reach out –– that otherwise would get lost in the sound. i almost wish i had taken a picture then but i'm ultimately glad i didn't because i am a big believer in the importance of a mental photograph. keep it with you and it will go with you.

one time i scared the living shit out of paula while pacing on that balcony because i was walking back and forth in front of the window in my big hoodie, and she thought some scary man had climbed over the chainlink divider that connected to our neighbors'.

it was a balcony where i spent a lot of beautiful time by myself and never ever felt alone.

above: view from lillie's janky balcony that night she moved out and i stepped out of the party to have a mysterious tipsy phone call where i probably was too earnest but my heart is warm thinking back on it and i knew nothing and meant it all.

above: the very very first! friends on the balcony where my 19-year old self wondered at having peers for the first time.

the lap desk pictured on the couch belongs to kendall (middle) and i took it when she moved out and she never said anything. it is now leaning against the couch in my apartment, about six feet from me, and i use it regularly. kendall and i had dinner last week.

below: view from the balcony where, for the first time ever, it smacked me in the face like a dumb-ass bird flying into a window –– i am in love.

over the length of our 9-month lease, i watched this crane and the people operating it put up a building, day by day, floor by floor. very cool to see the daily progression; it felt like an important metaphor at the time. another day and another pillar was stood.

balcony comes up a lot for me. one day i will be very old and still looking over my city, heart swelling with love for it and all the people in it. it will be this stinky city of los angeles, and it will be new york and it will be visiting my sister in london and it will be an air b&b in berlin and it will be an old old tiny cramped studio in paris and it will still be me, alone or not alone, stood on a balcony having an epiphany and being dramatic asf.