There’s nothing more humbling than leaving your husband and two year old to fly to Miami for 48 hours and spending half of it alone in a hotel with a stomach bug trying to tell yourself the silver lining is the alone in a hotel part.
I watched so many Gilmore Girl episodes. I made friends with the room service person and scored many complimentary Gingerales. By the time I surfaced for brunch on Saturday afternoon, I had finally figured life out.
In some ways, I was an early bloomer. I read Gone With the Wind in the fourth grade. I skipped eighth grade. I graduated from college in three and a half years. And then I Benjamin Button’d my way through my twenties and early thirties. On paper, I had my shit together. Duke Law, top law firm, apartment in the West Village, animal shelter fundraisers in Southampton (my brain, free associating just how much I looked like things were good). But there was such a disproportionately tiny amount of meaning. My focus was entirely on my first place and second place — where I lived and where I worked. The concept of a “third place” didn’t enter my orbit until recently.
The idea of a “third place” — somewhere you find meaning and connection outside of home and the workplace — isn’t new (at all). It’s been embedded in our pop culture of choice, something we gravitate towards ironically from the comfort of our home: Central Perk, the diner in Stars Hollow, Cheers, a place where everyone knows your name. Like many other things having to do with social interaction and community, modern life has pulled us away from third places.
Third places and the essence of civics
If you read this Substack consistently, you know where this is going! Part of building a civics “toolbox” is finding a third place. It’s integral to finding your civic village. It’s just as worthwhile an endeavor as microdosing basic civic knowledge about the 3 branches of government and the Constitution, and guaranteed to be more therapeutic and fun.
For Americans, third places are where we can both affirm our own identities and build empathy for identities different from our own.
Humans are wired for connection and community and I think parenthood lends itself for finding both of these things. Whether you’re in search of a third place to escape your kids and/or discover a part of yourself that isn’t linked to family or career (because it can totally be both), finding your “third place” is tantamount for a Myers’ cocktail for the soul. And yes, civics at its finest.
More soon,
Sarah