Balconies

Our little condo here in Toronto has a nice balcony off the living area, and although it is not huge, there is room for two Adirondack chairs I brought from Dartmouth as well as a little table and chair. The last time we stayed here, when Ryan & Ben lived in this condo, I laid down an IKEA wooden floor, and Regis has taken up gardening with pots of lettuce, basil, and tomatoes sitting in the sun,  so it has become a lovely place to sit and watch life in the big city. We do have a good view of the CN Tower but mostly our view is of other condo and apartment buildings. 

Sunshine, but no people

Surrounding us are literally hundreds and hundreds of other nice balconies, but most of the time I sit out enjoying the fresh air and the noise of the city I do not see anyone else actually using their balconies. Our building has 25 stories of condos and the sister building which we look out on has even more, so I have a good view of many balconies. Most of them actually have more furniture and decoration than ours does, but no one uses them. 

If it is warm enough I like to take my coffee and computer out on the balcony in the morning to catch up on the news of the world, write my journal and check on Facebook. If it is nice I go out there to read, often take lunch out on the balcony, I enjoy a glass of wine out there in the evening after supper, and it is nice to go out and watch the sun go down over Toronto. But I am usually looking out on vacant balconies at any of these times. 

During my time in China I noticed that the balconies there were mostly used to store unused household ‘stuff’ or to dry clothes, and I never saw people out on their balconies. When I asked one of the Chinese teachers I was working with about this, I was told that no one used their outdoor space because the air was so polluted and if it was sunny they wanted to avoid the sun. 

100's of balconies, but noone

Now I know some of my “Country Living” friends will say, “City noise, city polluted air, city high rises, why would you want to be outside?”, but I enjoy the hustle and bustle of the big city, and I assume most of the people living in the condos and apartments around me have elected to live in the big city as well, so I really do not understand all the empty balconies. Our downsizing experiment has shown us that we can enjoy life in a small easy to clean space, but we have also decided that we need a balcony with a view and I really think we will continue to use and enjoy it.