The Beauty of Balconies

Intriguing views and wild shows -- vavoomy vacuumers to insect orchestras -- make these upper-level perches ideal places to spend summer nights with friends. Unless Lucifer's Kitties show up.

I used to think that porches, those special in-between places that are neither in-house nor on-street, were the most wonderful places on the planet to drink in a scene.

But then I found balconies — those perches that thrust you up and out and over whatever is below. They’re even better.

My fascination with balcony life began in Seattle after moving into a downtown apartment on Western Ave. Home to fishmongers and fruit stands and filled with the aroma of cinnamon-orange spice tea, Pike Place Market was just above my flat and lovely Elliott Bay spread out below.

My small balcony spilled a splendid view of the gold-lit ferries gliding across the bay’s placid waters — if you craned your neck majorly to the right. I moved out a tiny table and two chairs, spending my evenings there writing to the low moan of the ferry horns, stretching my neck every few minutes to take in the corresponding view.

This is a balcony in the Seattle building I lived in, but my apartment was further back, requiring serious craning to see the water. Note the triple windows on the brick building next door.

Given my (kinda) view, I was puzzled when the first guy I invited to the balcony declined sitting in the “view chair,” instead taking a seat in the chair that looked across onto a boring brown brick apartment building.

A charismatic drummer in a popular band, Jason had never shown much interest in me before, but that afternoon, as he gazed at me across my balcony table, the musician appeared swept away by my effervescent conversation — his expressions ranging from intrigue to delight, then deep fascination.

He left after an hour, but showed up the next day and the day after that — always wanting to sit in the balcony chair without a view. I was thinking Jason had a serious crush on me until his third visit, when, after a while on the balcony, he shook his head, dazed. “She really puts on a show,” he mumbled.

“Who puts on a show?” I asked.

“Your neighbor. The one right behind you in the brick building.”

I swiveled around and looked at the apartment straight across, about 50 feet away, only vaguely making out a figure in front of a triple-wide floor-length window — and realizing I seriously needed to change my contact prescription.

“What’s she doing?” I asked.

“Stripping,” he said. “While she vacuums.”

According to Jason, my neighbor’s shows got racier every day.

The next time I buzzed him in, he didn’t bother with a greeting, simply running to the balcony, holding up binoculars. “What’s she doing today?”

My popularity soared — more guys dropping by out of the blue requesting to sit in the balcony chair without the bay view — since Jason had blabbed all over town about the free porn show from my perch.

Like any good neighbor, I considered reporting the stripping-while-hoovering performances directly to the authorities. Then I thought about selling tickets. Before I had time to decide which tack to take, however, I was beckoned to other balconies in exotic locales.

What does Tom Robbins, author of Still Life with Woodpecker, Jitterbug Perfume, Another Roadside Attraction, and Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (made into a movie by Gus Van Sant) have to do with my Seattle apartment? When I moved in, I hung two beautiful paintings of 1920s flappers, aka “The Girls.” Soon thereafter, I interviewed a tarot card reader for an article. Her name: Alexa D’Avalon — and Tom Robbins is her husband. Weirdly, she was the spitting image of one of “The Girls.” Then, a bit later, I received a letter for Alexa D’Avalon — addressed to my Seattle apartment. I wanted to tell her about the letter, but couldn’t locate her number. That afternoon, I called my phone message retrieval service — but I misdialed the number. I was taken aback when a female answered the phone, saying “Alexa D’Avalon” — oddly, my misdial was precisely her telephone number. Alexa told me that she and Tom had previously lived in my very apartment. I was so shocked that I forgot to ask if the vacuuming lady had stripped for them, too.

***

My next perch was In Chiang Mai, Thailand, where the wooden balcony overlooked a jungly courtyard dripping with orchids tumbling down from trees. The thrill went beyond the natural beauty and the scent of tropical flowers that hung in the air. I was even more wowwed by the audial splendor. Every evening on that balcony I was swept away by the jungle’s “insect orchestra” and its spellbinding nocturnal concerts.

The frogs opened the nightly performances, their deep rhythmic croaking ultimately fading as the insect section took over — different species coming to the forefront throughout in a mesmerizing symphony of chirping, humming, whistling, and wheezing — some insects shrilly screaming like diving kamikaze planes, others sonorous and calming. The choruses and concertos went on all through the night with interludes dominated by geckoes, which sounded like demented old men yelling, "F-you, f-you!"

And then in the morning, the day began on my balcony with the equally wonderful twittering, chirping, and songs from the Jungle’s Built-In Bird Alarm Clock. I’ve never adored nature so much.

My balcony overlooking the jungle courtyard in Chiang Mai.

If Jason had come with me — and he didn’t, never once contacting me after I moved out of my Seattle stripper-view digs — he would not have been disappointed, however. Across the jungle courtyard, within viewing distance of my balcony, lived “The Professor,” a jolly Santa Claus-like American divorcé in his 70s. Every evening, he zipped past on his motorcycle with two or three 20-something Thai beauties for that night’s orgy. Had I craned my neck, I could have seen right into his house. But I didn’t bother.

***

Cadaqués

Despite my burgeoning appreciation of balconies, I quickly learned that not all of these perches looking over the world are actually wonderful in practice. Take, for instance, my balcony in Cadaqués — one of the most divine beach towns on the Spanish coast and also the summer vacation spot of Salvador Dalí.

The artist was long dead when I showed up in the village, but I befriended his former manager, Captain Peter Moore — a charming Irishman with plenty of tales. The Captain wanted me to help with his memoir about Dalí and he kindly offered to put me up at their beautiful apartment in the heart of the village.

His wife drove me to the apartment, unlocked a gate and we crossed a tiled terrace, lined with flower beds without flowers, to a semi-subterranean bungalow. It was like a hobbit hole: most of the cottage was built deeply into a hill, while the back looked out to the sea.

Inside, down the stairs was a sweet railroad-style dwelling, where everything was miniature: the bed was a single, the table was for two, the kitchen was slightly bigger than an E-Z Bake Oven; even the bathtub was a demi-tub. Small windows overlooked a garden with a life-size sculpture of Dalí sitting on a bench, and on top of the hobbit hole, a small balcony spread out, offering a beguiling view of the water.    

“And you will have plenty of four-footed friends!” said the Captain’s wife as she showed me around. “The kitties like to play in the garden!”

I pictured fluffy little kittens batting daisies.     

My first night at the Hobbit Hole,  I poured a glass of wine and climbed the twenty stairs to the door, then up another flight of stairs outside to the balcony, which perched off the roof. Shaded by an old pine, it looked down over the town to the misty bay and I planned to spend all my nights writing there.

The lilac arms of sunset were slipping around the hills as I sat down at the balcony table, lighting a candle. It was one of those perfect-temperature nights, the air settling on my shoulder like a soft shawl, and someone strummed guitar off in the distance.

In a word: heaven.

Until the pine tree began shaking.

I looked up to see a mangled beige paw, claws extended. Then another paw, this one black. Then another and another. Ten cats were hanging out of the tree. Hissing. Spitting. Snarling. They weren’t cute little kittens. They were feral felines with missing eyes, ripped ears, and torn limbs.

“Git!” I said, stamping my foot. This gesture only elicited amplified cat cursing; more paws hung down, air-clawing my face from two feet away.“Go on now!” I yelled.

As if summoned, another gang of cats raced up the tree — and then they all jumped down onto the balcony wall, running towards me, hissing. Twenty mangy felines now surrounded me, their eyes gleaming and radiating pure evil. I could imagine these devil kitties serving as “familiars” for black magic covens, and had a vision of them pouncing on me and ripping me to shreds, like a scene out of a cheap horror flick.    

“I mean it!” I said, standing up and stomping again. “Go!”

I didn’t believe in familiars — until I encountered the devil kitties of Cadaqués.

RAAAIR! The meanest cat — the scabby beige one missing an eye, half a leg, and most of its tail — leapt onto the table, knocking off my wine glass, which shattered on the ground.

I grabbed the candle and ran into the house, locking the door.

I paced the cottage, so small I could pace its entirety in ten seconds, feeling like a prisoner in my new home. I could hear the Devil Kittens knocking things around on the balcony, snarling. Then they jumped into the garden, appearing at my window to hiss in my face. I pulled shut the curtain. Even with the curtain closed, I felt eyes upon me. And not only the cats.’ The whole place felt dark, haunted, and creepy.

I ran out of my apartment to the nearest bar. It took three snifters of Calvados to get me to return. I was just being paranoid, I decided, climbing zigzagging stone streets. Thankfully, Lucifer’s Helpers were not hanging from the tree or anywhere to be seen when I unlocked the gate. But the stench of fresh cat pee wafted heavily.

That weekend my friend Roxanne took the bus in from Barcelona. Unlike everyone from the village who’d visited my apartment, she didn’t run out the second she set foot in the Hobbit Hole.

“It’s charming,” she said.

“It’s haunted,” I countered. I’d asked the Captain about the hill that the apartment was built into. He said it was once a potato field. An old villager later told me it was, in fact, a former cemetery.

Roxanne laughed at my superstitiousness, saying she didn’t feel a thing. She requested that we sit on the lovely balcony. I mentioned Satan’s Helpers. She didn’t believe me about them, either.

We had just sat down at the balcony table — setting it up marvelously with candles, a pricy bottle of wine, and a fantastic spread of cheese — when Lucifer’s Felines showed up, more vicious than ever: they hated my friend more than me. One actually pounced on her back from the tree, and several jumped on the table, knocking off both the cheese plate and the bottle of wine, which smashed on the ground. She believed me after that.

I never ventured out again to that balcony, and at summer’s end, I left Cadaqués. A few months later, I checked in with my 20-something friend Marcus, who lived in the beach village.

He said he had a new girlfriend. I asked what she was like.    

“Oh, she’s gorgeous, but weird,” Marcus replied. “Says she’s a witch.”

I let out a laugh.

“On our first date, I took her to dinner,” Marcus continued. “She kept talking about the most charged place in the whole village. Said it was totally creepy. So after dinner she took me there — and, yep, it was creepy all right.”

“Where was it?” I asked.

“Your hobbit hole cottage! The balcony! She said all the witches did rituals there — using the cats!”

Despite that frightening balcony in Cadaqués, I wasn’t yet done with the upper-level perches. And the ones in Barcelona were the most entertaining of them all…

This post will conclude with the upcoming Balconies of Barcelona.