10 november

In Lutsk, my balcony was an unusual space. To call it a feature seems overly generous and to call it a room is simply incorrectly. To clarify: although the location of the balcony in Chernihiv required the use of my bedroom of a thoroughfare, it was far more convenient than my balcony in Lutsk, which utilized a window as a method of entry. A sliding glass window this was not. In fact, the window frame in question was so awkwardly arranged, with a heating register beneath, a wide window ledge on the inside, and a slight metal-sheet overhang on the outside sill, that simply climbing up to scramble out of the window would bend the metal sheet over the outside edge of the sill. Instead, study and practice prescribed a singular method of egress:

1. Carefully swing open the window, both top (small) and lower (large) pane, taking care not to let the lower (large) pane hit the Soviet-manufactured stove which sticks out slightly past its allotted space in this extremely narrow kitchen.

2. Pass one (1) kitchen/ dining room/ desk chair [note: these are all the same, so it’s okay if they get mixed up, except the one with the welding—don’t use that one] through the window and set it outside on the concrete of the balcony, slightly away from the ledge.

3. Set one (1) kitchen/ dining room/ desk chair just inside of the window, close enough so that it’s touching the inside window ledge.

4. When ready, step up to the first chair, onto the inside ledge, and then (not stepping on the outside metal ledge at all) step onto the outside chair, one foot at a time.

5. Finish in triumph, standing with both feet on the outside chair! You are now on the balcony!

Of course, I have failed until now to point out that my balcony in Lutsk was a stubby little square, certainly an architectural leftover from my neighbors’ much larger rectangular enclosure. Standing in triumph on my kitchen/ dining room/ desk chair on my balcony meant that I was the queen of less than a square yard of crumbly concrete with rusty metal railings. I think you understand that by ‘yard’ here I mean less ‘an area where people run around and frolic’ and more ‘something close to a meter’.

I think you also understand that I rarely stood on my kitchen/ dining room/ desk chair in triumph on my balcony. I climbed out there a few times to spiderweb a complicated laundry-line system, then mainly just completed step one (1) of the above list and then hung things outside to dry by hanging myself out the window. Because the inside window ledge and the outside ledge, with metal overhang, totaled about two feet, this was a somewhat awkward process.

As you’re probably figuring out, ‘a somewhat awkward process’ might make a great subtitle for this collection.