The Third Place

Places, spaces, and faces that make us feel like we belong

One of the first local spots that I found when I moved to Santa Barbara was the Dart Garden - an idyllic community space owned by a local coffee shop and immaculately decorated with cafe tables, fruit trees, and blossoming garden beds. It was a microcosm of Santa Barbara- new moms having playdates, college kids studying for midterms, tourists recaffeinating in between window shopping, and salty-mustached locals talking about the last week's swell. Even though I was still a new-in-town loner, I remember feeling a sense of belonging, like somehow I was part of the community by sitting there and drinking my $5 cappuccino.

Turns out sociologists have a name for places like the Dart Garden - the third place. If the first place is home, and the second place is work, the third place is a social space where you can go to meet friends (or strangers), have conversations, and just generally hang (e.g. bars, gyms, cafes, parks, the under-appreciated stoop, etc). I always thought of these spaces as places where I sometimes ended up when I wanted to get out of the house. Pre-covid, going to the gym or for a run in the park were usually my go-tos (more for exercise than a sense of belonging), but these days, when my first place and second place have melded into one, I'm starting to appreciate all that third places can offer.

Coffee shop culture is poppin off in Santa Barbara, and even though I don't get geeked on bean origin stories and burr specs, I do appreciate the unique vibe that a coffee shop can offer. On days where Im feeling anxious or indecisive, getting out of the house and to a coffee shop can be just enough momentum to kickstart the rest of the day. I can't say that it usually leads to me having intellectual discussions with strangers, or getting greeted by name when I walk through the door, but in a small town like SB there is a decent probability I'll run into someone I know (or at the very least have a nice exchange with a barista or an apologetic dog owner).  I should also mention that eavesdropping at coffee shops is a hobby I'm elite at. Here are some highlights from recent memory:

• "You know this used to be all industrial warehouses and starving artists"  -An old head telling the story of the gentrification of the Funk Zone in SB 👴

• "He's right, there's no room for creativity when you're busy" -Two working mom's breaking down a podcast that spoke to their souls 👩‍👧‍👧

• "You and I are the type of people that need to achieve something to feel like it was a good day. We gotta close a deal, get a new lead, get something important done” - Two sales bros trying to unpack what sounded like depression to me 🤝

• "I'm starting to care way more about how I'm working than what I'm working on. I don't think we're meant to be staring at a screen all day" - A woman mid-mid-life crisis confiding in her friend 👩‍💻

• "No need for therapy today! This is what I needed" - A grateful gal hugging her friend-therapist goodbye 🫂

When I get these peeks into other people’s lives, I feel a sense of shared humanity. There’s something about seeing other people happy (or even struggling) that gives me perspective and reminds me that we're all out here just trying our best to get by.

In a sad twist of fate that's almost too cliché to believe, a big real estate developer is trying to buy up the whole block where the Dart Garden sits to build condos and a parking structure - they're really trying to pave paradise to put up a parking lot. There have been plenty of jokes among the Dart Garden ride-or-dies about chaining ourselves to the orange trees or starting a Go-Fund-Me to buy the land, but I think the story about the lil garden vs the bulldozer is caught up in a web that's hard to untangle. If you'll allow me to put my bleeding-heart-hippie hat on-- in a society where money talks louder than community well-being, third places are just wastes of space or low-ROI business ventures. Housing crises and recessions are real, but so is a loneliness epidemic - (podcast rec of the month is this episode that dives into it). Maybe it's a little kumbaya to think that all of our problems would be solved if we just felt a little more connected to one another, but that's a freedom I'm afforded when strategizing world peace from a hot tub.

While writing this, I couldn't help but also think of the concept of joie de vivre 🤌.  For you uncultured swines that don't speak French, that means joy of life, and it's a phrase that sums up the general enjoyment of life thats comes when you make time for enjoying all the little things. I'll let Hanz from the Spotted Ox Hostel paint the picture:

Working two half-hour a day may get you fired, and chain-smoking cigarettes may put tar in your lungs, but I think Euro Nick Kroll is on to something with his day-in-the-life. If it's normal to have long meals with friends or chat about life and people-watch at the café, there’s room for joie de vivre to seep in to the cracks of life and make us whole.

I'd like to make Hot Tub Talks less of a one-sided conversation - so I'm going to test a new feature called Substack Chat. If reading this made you think of a third place that means something to you, drop it in the chat below. Thanks for reading and being a part of this!

Brandon