Third Space

Jenny and I had a fantastic conversation this weekend that spanned four days, several meals, and countless locations.  Both of us had so much to say, so much to tell each other, and couldn’t wait to get it all laid out for one another.

And if the kids hadn’t interrupted consistently, it might have taken all of twenty minutes.

First Lake

We made our annual pilgrimage to Old Forge this past weekend, and put a conclusive end to the weeks we had been building up the trip to Parker and Audrey.  Some of the highlights, which I may or may not get to in later posts, are:

• Parker’s reaction to the fireworks, punctuated by his play-by-play calling of the rockets, each with its own unique name
• Parker’s social networking among the crowd at the fireworks, which was such a rousing success that he made it out of the evening with glow sticks and sparklers provided by new “friends.”
• Me climbing a tree for the first time in 10 years to retrieve the gifted glow stick after it was thrown by a new “friend.”

The content of the conversation that Jenny and I were trying to have all weekend was punctuated, I should say, rather than interrupted, by the kids and their squeals of excitement.  Whether it was Parker gaining the courage to go down all of the slides at Enchanted Forest, or showing us his new-found skills diving into First Lake of the dock, or Audrey showing us that climbing up stairs was now a possibility, or that she has the same “non-fear” as her brother when it comes to the water, Jenny and I could barely get a word in edgewise.  Even when we were able to, the amazement with which we viewed the actions of the two kids often took precedence over our intended conversation.

When we finally did have the time to talk, we found ourselves walking to the only viable coffee shop in the town, a newly opened store called Ozzie’s (named after the family’s Golden Retriever), at 6:00 in the morning (Audrey’s new waking time), we both had similar thoughts: there is something about third spaces.  What is a third space?  Well, think about the areas you inhabit in your lives:

• Work: where you earn your living and behave in certain ways.  Often, this is the major source of responsibility and thus, stress.
• Home: your sanctuary, but often the place where you bring the stress from work, or in some cases, the source of new stress.

Those spaces, let’s call them first and second, often occupy 99.999% of our time.  If we don’t work extremely hard at keeping them separate, we can damage the quality of our lives.  And, even if they are separate, sometimes there is the need to disappear from both.  We call this vacation.  Those fortunate enough to take vacation know the value of it transcends just the immediate; I love to hear Jenny or her father tell me stories of the vacations they took as kids to various places–it’s so easy to see how much they have affected their view of what it means to be a family.

What differs about Old Forge for us is that it is more than just a vacation because it exists even if we don’t have a vacation.  The house is there, all we need to do is supply the time and means to get there. I described it to both Jenny and Charlie this way:

“It’s as if when you are driving up here, the things you carry with you on a daily basis–the stressors and the responsibilities–strip away as the mileage away from home increases, so that when you arrive here, all that matters are the things you want to matter.  Your kids, their happiness, and the people you love.”

There is a point on Route 28 that several of us recognize as the beginning of the majesty that the trip to mountains brings to our lives.  A town called Forestport
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sits about 40 minutes north of Utica on Route 28, and there is an old iron-truss bridge at the base of a valley that bestrides a waterway underneath.  On the other side of the bridge is a long upward slope rimmed by giant evergreens.  On more than one occasion in the few years I have had the good fortune to travel there, I have cranked down every window in the car and just inhaled the biggest breath I could. Clean, fresh, and the signal that everything I had wanted to shed from my first two spaces was now gone.

There are so many things I thank God for on a daily basis: my wife, my children, and their respective health.  But there is also something I include about the lessons I learn from my wife about how to live well, about how to make sure that our time together is full of levity infused with love, of both passion and caprice, and the ability to revel in magical places.  For those things, I cannot thank her enough.