{"id":4176,"date":"2026-01-28T09:00:32","date_gmt":"2026-01-28T14:00:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/?p=4176"},"modified":"2026-01-27T16:00:41","modified_gmt":"2026-01-27T21:00:41","slug":"my-paris-balcony","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/2026\/01\/28\/my-paris-balcony\/","title":{"rendered":"My Paris Balcony"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<h5 class=\"wp-block-heading\">By Jackie Ayala, Editor<\/h5>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">I feel the metal railing under my fingers<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">on this cool June evening.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">With the streetlights\u2019 flicker<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">and the blue sky darkening to show the moon,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">I watch the restaurants fill with the crowd.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">From my Paris balcony, I\u2019m shown multiple lives<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left\">On this Montmartre corner, only a fragment of this city<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator aligncenter has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>A group of friends singing and dancing,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>a cat roaming the cobblestone streets,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>a pair of shoes hanging on a string high above,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>a too-drunk man wobbling around and saying hi to all.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My Paris balcony showed me love,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>From the couple in the bookstore<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>to the group of women at the restaurant.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>I saw love from my friends after<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>long nights of us standing and listening<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>to the music and movements of the city;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>standing and admiring the Eiffel Tower from afar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>My Paris balcony showed me a new perspective of this city.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>It wasn\u2019t just what I saw in photos,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>those faint lights from the boats illuminating La Seine,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>ones I never could quite reach in my dreams.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The city kept moving and dancing,<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>footsteps and voices making up the melody.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<hr class=\"wp-block-separator has-alpha-channel-opacity\"\/>\n\n\n\n<p>My Paris balcony showed me beauty.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>My Paris balcony showed me life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image aligncenter size-large is-resized\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1200\" height=\"1050\" src=\"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/myparisbalconyjackieayala.heic-1200x1050.jpg\" alt=\"View of Paris, France from a balcony.\" class=\"wp-image-4166\" style=\"width:483px;height:auto\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/myparisbalconyjackieayala.heic-1200x1050.jpg 1200w, https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/myparisbalconyjackieayala.heic-500x438.jpg 500w, https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/myparisbalconyjackieayala.heic-768x672.jpg 768w, https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/myparisbalconyjackieayala.heic-1536x1344.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/01\/myparisbalconyjackieayala.heic-2048x1793.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1200px) 100vw, 1200px\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-element-caption\">My Paris Balcony | Jackie Ayala <\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>By Jackie Ayala, Editor I feel the metal railing under my fingers on this cool June evening. With the streetlights\u2019 flicker and the blue sky darkening to show the moon,&#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":4166,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_EventAllDay":false,"_EventTimezone":"","_EventStartDate":"","_EventEndDate":"","_EventStartDateUTC":"","_EventEndDateUTC":"","_EventShowMap":false,"_EventShowMapLink":false,"_EventURL":"","_EventCost":"","_EventCostDescription":"","_EventCurrencySymbol":"","_EventCurrencyCode":"","_EventCurrencyPosition":"","_EventDateTimeSeparator":"","_EventTimeRangeSeparator":"","_EventOrganizerID":[],"_EventVenueID":[],"_OrganizerEmail":"","_OrganizerPhone":"","_OrganizerWebsite":"","_VenueAddress":"","_VenueCity":"","_VenueCountry":"","_VenueProvince":"","_VenueState":"","_VenueZip":"","_VenuePhone":"","_VenueURL":"","_VenueStateProvince":"","_VenueLat":"","_VenueLng":"","_VenueShowMap":false,"_VenueShowMapLink":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"series":[],"class_list":["post-4176","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-creative"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=4176"}],"version-history":[{"count":10,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":4308,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4176\/revisions\/4308"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/4166"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=4176"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=4176"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=4176"},{"taxonomy":"series","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.imaginarygardens.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/series?post=4176"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}