From the Editor’s Desk: Third Space (Premium)

You’ve perhaps heard of the importance of the so-called third space, that place that is neither work nor home, where you meet with other people. Even before I had a formal understanding of third space, I long understood the importance of such a thing, in part because my first and second spaces, work and home, are the same space. But it’s recently become clear that one can–and maybe should–have multiple third spaces.

We certainly do.

I’ve worked for home for 30 years, and my wife has for almost 20 years, and so our third spaces in Pennsylvania are often a welcome break from what could otherwise turn into a great tedium. We both go to the gym, separately, and I have friends there I catch up with there regularly. This feels like a different kind of healthy.

We also have shared third spaces that we visit together. When we lived in an apartment in Macungie last year, we started walking over to a small local bar/restaurant, and it quickly escalated into a weekly get-together with a group of locals that, oddly enough, includes my brother-in-law and his wife, and we’ve gotten quite close after having known each other only in passing for several years. We moved away from there in late 2023, but we still visit with our friends there each week, eat dinner, and, when it’s on, play trivia. It’s become quite the extended family.

We also have a regular Friday night hangout, where we sit at (yet another) bar and know everyone. This place is fun for plenty of reasons, but we met some people there years ago who are now friends: The guy introduced himself as Q, which is a shortened form of a longer, hard-to-pronounce name. And so I looked over at his wife and said, “What’s your name, R?” To which she replied, “No, I’m Kay.” Which I of course heard as K. It’s no wonder I like these people.

The need for a third space is particularly acute here in Mexico City, where my wife and I are jammed into a tiny 750 square foot apartment with little in the way of privacy or alone time most days. I’m reminded of our earliest trips to Ireland, when we learned that the Irish often treat the local pub as a shared living room, creating a sense of community with those around them. I also viewed the cafés of Paris similarly.

Here in Mexico City, everything is close, with no driving required. We’re less than a 10-minute walk to dozens of favorite restaurants and bars, and we know many people within a few blocks of our apartment. Each day at lunch, we walk to an inexpensive local cocina or other small restaurant, and each night we similarly walk to another eatery, perhaps a bit nicer or further away. And in each case, I can almost literally feel those places and the people there imprinting on us, just as we do in many cases on them.

I had an interesting moment last week at a nearby bar we’ve glommed onto for its friendly people, terrific cocktails, and surprisingly delicious tacos. My wife and I were sitting at the bar, as always, and there were a few other people at the bar between us and the entrance. At some point, a woman who had been alone at the end of the bar was joined by a friend, and the silence down there was broken by a suddenly boisterous explosion of sound as the two caught up. I looked down the bar to see what was going on.

“Cynthia?” I asked, as my eyes locked with those of the woman who had just joined her friend. She shrieked and came over and hugged us both and caught up with my wife and me. It was a friend from the neighborhood, seen in a different context, out in the world, and unexpectedly. It was a classic local moment, the type of thing you almost couldn’t have if you were just a visitor. With that, the heart string tug was complete, with us pulled one iota closer to the Mexico side of what is now a terrible emotional tug of war between our two homes.

But this isn’t our only third space in the area.

There’s the corner restaurant manned by Joel–pronounced “Oh-ell” here, which now feels curiously normal–where I mistakenly asked for juego verde (“green game” in Spanish) the other day when I meant “jugo verde (“green juice”), causing one of his eyebrows to go up before we both burst into laughter simultaneously. The taco bar half a block over, where I am known for my “sin tortilla” orders. The sandwich shop where the old men say “hasta mañana” (see you tomorrow) with a wink when we leave, a cute way of saying they’d like to see us again the next day. Our favorite café, owned by a friend, he of “pretty bueno” fame, where we joke about really being there to see Nelson the dog, but in fact just feel like we’re part of something, a group of people who gather to hang out, watch sports, or share and discuss music. And our favorite sushi restaurant, a fishy version of Cheers where everyone knows everyone’s name; we brought our friends there little bottles of real Vermont maple syrup from home after seeing them eating pancakes with store-bought sugary syrup on the last trip.

These people, these places–these third spaces, I guess–would be important in any context. But in Mexico, they are ties that bind, a series of connections that make us part of this place. And it a part of us. As they are in Pennsylvania, of course.

These connections are strong and can be long-lasting. When I go back to Boston where I grew up, I stay with friends, and a group of us always visit the same terrific local Chinese restaurant where we went as kids, and it’s like nothing has changed, like 40 years haven’t gone by. And I can visit Bamboo, my favorite sushi place in Dedham, and people there still say hello to me by name. I moved away almost 8 years ago. That’s incredible.

You’ve probably heard the phrase, “Home is the place where, when you have to go there, they have to take you in.” This is a quote from Robert Frost’s “The Death of the Hired Man,” which is about the importance of going home after being away. This quote has always rung true to me, but there’s a more nuanced take on it that’s perhaps equally true. You can’t choose your family, and so in many ways they’re stuck with you, just as you are with them.

The third space isn’t home. And one of the nice things about it is that it’s a choice. As with your friends, you’re not stuck, you’ve instead gravitated towards each other. A third space is, in many ways, a place where, when you go there, they’re happy to see you, and you’re happy to see them. It’s why you’re there. It’s different from home or work. And that’s true even when those are the same space, as they are for me and my wife.