The Third Place: between your work and home
If you search for ‘third place’ on Google, you will find many articles referring back to the famous sociologist Ray Oldenburg and his influential book, The Great Good Place. He refers to the first place as home and second place as work — these two being the place where people spend most of their time. He describes the third place as “the heart of a community’s social vitality”. He goes on to highlight eight key traits that makes up for a third place, out of which three resonate with me:
Neutral ground
A home away from home
Accessibility
I am not going to talk about this concept in detail and reiterate what hundreds of articles already do. I want to take a moment to write about the Third Place in Abu Dhabi, and I’ll tell you why. Being in a business development role in the construction industry, I am on the road 90% of the time. Meeting after meeting after meeting, and before heading back home, I like to visit specialty cafes from time-to-time and recharge — physically and mentally.
Coffee and caffeine helps with both, with the addition of satisfying the tastebuds. But the cafe experience rarely touches the soul. Cafes for me serve multiple functions. I have some for work, a few for connecting with friends, and I can count a handful that are for ‘me’. This is a space when i enter, everything else goes on hold. I focus on myself, perhaps a creative ambition I am working on, reading, writing, or a reflection and recalibration session that I’m in need of. Being in my 30’s now, I have come to this realization that being there for so many people in my life, you need to set aside some time for yourself to get back to reality with a fresh approach.
Now that I have given you a little insight to how I treat cafes which are not only for drinking coffee, my next segue is when I started interacting with Hala about various specialty cafes in the UAE. And I had no idea she was running a cafe. I was mostly intrigued by her writing, how she described the space she was in and the way it made her feel. There’s only one other person I know who does that we and we are synchronous on many levels.
Coming back to the cafe, this is not your regular run-of-the-mill coffee shop. There is sukoon (peace) as soon as you walk in, the feeling you get when you are finally home back from unfamiliar territory. You sit down on the first table you lay your eyes on, no decision fatigue setting in there. Take a few deep breaths, and already thinking about how to make the best of this very limited moment you have for yourself.
When all cafes start to feel the same because there are elements that practically repeat themselves, the Third Place stands out to serve the community. There’s even a library room which I quickly entered and exited because of a few serious individuals in there devouring books like cream pastry.
Since this is a coffee blog and you expect me comment on the coffee — it’s from RAW Coffee Company. I ordered a cappuccino, it was perfectly executed, credits to the barista. As simple as that. After an hour, it was time to wind up and head to Dubai. How did I feel after my ‘me time’ — fulfilled.
Check out Hala Zainal’s interview on FLTR Magazine. It’s a good read.
