Where Is Your Third Place?
Season 5, #4: Stargazing about spaces that bring out who you are
AS SEASON 5 NEARLY disappears in the Stargazing rearview mirror, I’ve been absorbed by an emotion I’d missed in recent years.
Since the pandemic, and the rise of remote work, the need for a “third place” has never been more important. So you might be wondering, “What in heck’s name is a ‘third place’?”
It goes back to a book The Great Good Place by Ray Oldenburg (1989) that is currently on my short list to read. I’d recently come across an article about it and got to thinking how much has changed in my life over the last decade—and not particularly in a “good way.” Maybe a closer examination of this conundrum includes the sociological concept of places and their meanings.
The “first place” Oldenburg describes as one’s “home”—this includes where you live and the family (if you have one) you live with. The “second place” is where you go to work and the people you know there. Any “third place” is where you meet up with people outside of family or workplace—a bar or coffee shop, hobby group or meetup, gym, salon, or barbershop—heck, even bowling league night.
The shocker for me was realizing my first place has always (since I left my original family home) been any place I’ve lived (nearly always alone) and my second place got totally scorched in 2020 during the pandemic.
My third place suddenly became my first and second places.
Folks, that’s not great news to report. It’s a recipe for disaster.
How do we fix it?
Let’s find out.
I LANDED MY FIRST apartment as young adult in 1986. It was a struggle to leave home and my parents were understanding but sad about it. I was too but I knew it was time to leave and forge my own future. It’s one of those landmark moments in growing up: Leaving Home.
But leaving home also means Creating Home. My late father said he never worried about me too much since I loved “making my own nest” wherever we lived. He knew I’d find my own way. And that turned out to be true for most of the time.
That is, until it didn’t.
It was tough living in my new first place—feathering my nest and calling it home. I was in my 30s and struggling to be a screenwriter, novelist, storyteller, and make money in communications, or finally getting an undergraduate degree and breaking into publishing, since I always loved books and the people who made them. I also loved movies and how the stories told in them seemed to float on the winds, ethereal and strange, conveying emotion and meaning beyond words.
To me that was magical.
So, after writing a first spec screenplay in 1989, taking the draft to England to do further research, and then returning to the the U.S. to rewrite it through the 1990s, I found an agent and then returned to Minnesota to become part of the Screenwriters’ Workshop, where a new tribe emerged of fellow writers. We started “script groups” and met regularly to critique and socialize. Some of the happiest days of my young life were spent with these travelers. I learned more from them than I ever could on my own.
Those script groups became my third place.
I left teaching screenwriting and being a member of script groups in the early aughts because it no longer served a purpose for me. While I might have helped others, I needed to help myself. I started a subgroup with another friend and we formed a core of 5-6 people (mostly men, much to my chagrin since I value women’s opinions on nearly everything) that eventually I felt edged out of, oddly enough. So that ended. Like some relationships do.
Do I miss it? Yeah, sometimes.
What I don’t miss is feeling lonely among a tribe of my own making.
Not at all. That’s not what “belonging” is about.
It’s not about me, ever. What matters is contributing to something I care about. If I offer a suggestion, I should be open to yours, too. As individuals we are nothing. What we add is everything. Easy peasy, right?
Hold on a sec.
WHERE DO YOU GO when you have nowhere to go? What is your “home away from home?”
Thinking about writing this troubled me a lot. First I had to confess my “home life”—my first place—was weak. Second, my “work life” was also weak and tenuous. And lastly, I was hungry for a third place because the other two places were not functioning. Of course. It just makes sense.
But you can’t build Rome in a day. It’s too much to ask. If you’re wise, you can steer the Titanic away from that iceberg. Hence the point of this late Stargazing is to ask questions and peek into “places everyone inhabits.” I nearly ditched this whole newsletter until this past Thursday, hustling between events, I found a lone penny outside a Walgreens. I put it in my pocket and said to myself “The Oracle Speaks!”…and I intended to check the date on the coin (2005) and tag a journal entry later that might give me a clue about what to do about my “third place” conundrum.
That Oracle date would be August 8, 2005, so I went about my day and thought to look into it later.
MY NEW THIRD PLACE for the rest of August is here…
I’m taking a 6-week class where a half-dozen writers are working to carve out their futures together in filmmaking. I’m the oldest of the bunch and feeling it to a sour level—but punching back and contributing where I can, without being an alpha dog or anything. I hate alpha dogs…don’t wanna be an alpha dog. But when I contribute, I notice the others perk up. So I guess I have something to say. I try to make it thoughtful and considerate of the work we’re all doing.
It’s been a reflective time: not as convivial as the old script group days, but that’s okay. Trust and relationship-building take time. I get that. But people can only get to know you when you reveal who you are, right there, as you are, in the place where you’re living.
Last Thursday (with the Oracle coin my my pocket) we talked about short-term goals, internal and external rewards. I’d forgotten how much I loved my time with filmmaker friends in the 1990s, and so told a story about making a short film with new friends and how much we depended on each other to succeed. It was liberating to retell that.
Then I went home and examined the Oracle coin, looked up the date in the old journals and was absolutely floored by what I found.
IN AUGUST 2005 I was between leaving a book editor job (never on track in that company to be a senior editor) to a new job in a quasi-magazine legal senior editor role and that summer went to a film fest in northern Minnesota with a buddy who’d placed his short film there. We were meeting up with all our friends and camping out in Charlton, Minnesota, not far from Jay Cooke State Park—it was a pure joy ride and the journal recounts the magic. My filmmaker friend Scott was premiering his hilarious short film Uso Justo and we’d gone into town to join their “Carlton Daze” festival:
“Scott was great to watch with these people. He’s so generous. He donned himself as the ‘honorary mayor of Charlton’ and similarly donned Megan (a young woman we had just met) as the ‘queen of Charlton Daze.’ She laughed.”
Two late-arriving friends showed up for brunch at the Cozy Cafe and this lovely exchange happened:
“The big joke there was Scott riffing with the restaurant owner and server who, when asked if we needed anything, Scott asked for cream for his coffee in a joking fashion and the guy returned joking ‘Here’s your damn cream!’ which Scott loved so much it became our mantra for the day: ‘Here’s your damn cream.’ We came back the next day with another filmmaker and when the owner saw us he said: ‘Here’s your damn bill.’ We were rolling with laughter.”
With my friends, we biked and hiked and dipped our feet in the St. Louis River. I wrote: “I love this. I was in no hurry to leave: this was beautiful. The water: the stones, searching for them, the right skipping flatness, weight and roundness. The coolness of the water. The sun: my friends. I will never forget this day as long as I live. And so I must write it down.”
And so I did.
You see, that’s a third place.
That is belonging and living life, because had I not written it down, it would be forgotten.
“We partied ourselves silly that night: Rick shared some pot, and I had two bottles of Spanish red to share, Melody and Mark had beers and hard cider, Eric had a flask of cognac. Paul pulled out shots of blackberry brandy and everyone was babbling about film and new friendships. We tried to stargaze, but the fog had moved in due to the heat, big time, so we flashed our flashlights into the fog and traced the light with the bits of moisture in the fog, and analyzed the physics of light and refraction. Crazy city folks.”
When is the third place the first and second place? Is it possible to meld all three together? When family becomes a workspace making things and work becomes play that binds everyone closer?
I think that is possible, oh yeah.
And why not? Why not live in One Place rather than three?
RIGHT NOW MY THIRD place is once a month podcasting with new friend Simon Husbands, a deejay at KFAI in Minneapolis.
When I go there, I’m generally feeling down, but the music we play and the conversation makes me feel upbeat to the point where, after walking out, I’m thinking: “This is worth doing for just that.”
That’s what third places do. They amplify your life and enlarge your relationships. A marriage of two is only two—a marriage of two with friends is an entire world of wonder and belonging.
I’m at a crossroads. My old life is gone, and I’m coming to terms with that.
But I’m building toward what’s next.
It’s a good goal to keep in mind.
So now, questions (as Stargazing people are wont to do) for you…
What are your current first and second places? Do you have a third place, or multiple third places? Are there conflicts with your other places?
When have you decided to leave a favorite third place? What precipitated that decision? Have you regretted it?
Where is home to you? A favorite workplace? Or a hobby group you’ve joined that you continue to enjoy? What makes these places perfect for you?
Thank you for subscribing to StoryShed and see you in Season 6: Nightwalking!
Here’s a cookie for you … num nummy num … (of course a mall is a third place):
Notes
Third Places: What Are They and Why Are They Important to American Culture? From the University of Chicago’s English Language Institute, by Madeleine Roberts-Ganim.
I've been taking classes of interest since my sons left the nest. All good , but post-pandemic so many classes have moved on-line. Convenient, yes, but getting out of the house is always good. So I've tried to avoid on-line classes and select in-person classes. So much better to leave the house and see people in-person.
Weird how much things have changed.
You seem to be in a good place right now, Michael, whatever number or a combination of numbers that may be. I have lost recently No2 -- no sorries about that, but I am trying to redefine that and still struggling to enrich No3, oh that is quite a task. At least No1 is steady, although I wouldn't say no to a change. Quite a mess!!! But change is much needed.