Life on the Balcony
This morning’s delight arrived as a cube-shaped croissant, dusted with sugar and crowned with a swirl of mango–passion fruit cream. At its heart lay a lychee, nestled like a secret, with a small edible blossom adorning the top. The pastry was crisp on the outside, delicate and buttery within, a structure both strong and fragile. It defied the tools of knife and fork, asking instead for fingers, for intimacy, for slow dismantling. I turned it upside down and ate piece by piece, each flake serving as a vessel for the bright tropical filling.
There was something ceremonial in this small act: the deconstruction of beauty, the tasting of sweetness in stages, the surrender to a dessert too alive to be consumed politely. The edible flower brought with it an imagined breeze from some warm shoreline, and for a moment, the balcony became an island.
And yet, this island was shared. A wasp returned from its ventures and landed with heavy, lethargic steps, moving slowly toward the nest in the balcony rail. Others appeared and disappeared, their movements deliberate, their bodies no longer urgent with summer’s peak. They seemed aware of me, pausing in mid-flight, adjusting course as if recognizing a familiar presence.
The black wasps in the sliding door frame were less welcome—a reminder that balance between coexistence and intrusion is delicate. My plan is to wait for cooler days before asking for their removal, when time and season will have already softened their hold.
I remembered the small bees who once lived in the rail as well, their absence noted. Last year, one “bopped” me on the forehead mid-reading, an accidental, absurd encounter that made me laugh aloud at the odd intimacy of it. These encounters, comic, cautious, quiet are part of balcony life. Companions, even in their distance.
The croissant, the wasps, the bees, the cup of tea in my hand—today I felt held by a chorus of small presences. The balcony is not empty; it is shared.
Reflective Questions
1. What small rituals of eating or drinking become ceremonies when I give them my full attention?
2. How do I discern between what to coexist with and what to gently remove in my environment and life?
3. When has nature surprised me with humor or intimacy, as in the bee’s “boop”?
