The Third Place by Trish Smith

The Third Place

Canberra has its fair share of good coffee.  Maybe more than its fair share.  I have just wandered up through Garema Place, with almost two hours to kill before I am meeting with a client, in search of somewhere to set up my laptop and sip on a perfectly poured flat white.  There are plenty of choices but I have picked Tosolini’s on Bailey’s Corner, and now I am sitting up at the bench with a view of the traffic going round London Circuit, drivers in search of that elusive great parking spot.  Ooh, coffee’s just arrived.  Ah, the smell of freshly brewed espresso.  Hmm, lovely.

I was reading the other day about the idea of the Third Place.  You may not know the term but you’ll know the concept – it’s where you go to hide from your boss and your children.  The theory is that you need your home, your office, and then somewhere else.  Starbucks has been marketing itself successfully as a Third Place for some time now.  It’s why they have soft couches and newspapers readily available.  Unlike some establishments that provide uncomfortable chairs so you’ll order your food, eat and then leave with a back ache, Starbucks actually encourages you to sit for a while, do a little people watching and perhaps order a second double decaf mocha milkshake beverage thing.  Other coffee shops have cottoned onto the idea, and good on them.  Why shouldn’t you take your time with your morning espresso?  The Third Place needs to be somewhere you can visit, and somewhere you can literally put your feet up and relax and not feel pressured to leave.

As a working mother, the Third Place is an important thing for me.  I have finally accepted the fact that it is not possible and certainly not practical to hide out in my wardrobe.  Even if I’ve negotiated with my husband for an hour online in the study on a Saturday afternoon, the sounds of the kids arguing or making a mess in the kitchen invariably draws me out.  If I don’t get out of the house, I don’t get a break.  So where do I go?  Where do mothers go, when they go to their Third Place?

I tried the gym.  Really, I did.  I joined my local Curves and went sixteen times in six months.  I don’t need to know what that equates to as a per-visit cost.  I could have bought a new pair of heels from Furla with that money.  Factor in the cost of the coffees I had afterwards with my gym-buddy, Ann, plus the cost of parking, and I could have bought the matching handbag.  Curves is a great gym, and I highly recommend it for those of you who have the enviable ability to actually commit to an exercise regime.  I lost 20 centimetres off my butt/waist/thighs in the first month and decided that I’d reached my goal and then only went back again to perpetuate the myth that I was actively trying to get fit.  I never actually got fit (there’s some rule about half an hour of cardio a day… yup) but it was fun to do a couple of circuits with Ann and then go for coffee.

I would love to be one of those working mothers who books herself in for monthly facials and massages and actually makes it to the appointment.  I have a haircut every six weeks with the lovely Boyd in Kingston, and he laughs at my stories about the people I meet through my work, and commiserates with me over Caitlin’s latest trick (this week she’s got the ‘yeah Mum, like, whatever…’ down to a fine art) and generally strokes my ego as he styles my hair.  But the hairdresser isn’t a salon and once every six weeks isn’t enough so that can’t be my Third Place.

I read about some refurbished office space in Manhattan that has been set up as a Third Place for writers.  You can take your laptop (or paper and pen, if you’re old school) and book some desk space.  If you want to take a break from writing there’s a chill-out room and a kitchenette and almost certainly some manner of coffee machine.  It’s not free, of course, but for New York writers who are cramped in their little apartments or no longer willing to jostle for space at Starbucks it must be worth every penny.  I’d love to be one of those writers but alas I don’t live in Manhattan and besides, there’s plenty of room here at Tosolini’s.

So I don’t have a designated Third Place.  I have a selection of coffee shops and bookshops and other people’s kitchen benches that I visit when I find myself with an hour or two to spare, and sometimes I get out and go for a walk to clear my head, even if it’s just a walk to the end of my back verandah with a large glass of chardonnay while the kids are in the bath.  But it got me thinking.  There’s a market out there, for mothers like me who have such busy lives.  A Third Place with a gym that you can walk past to get to the on-site coffee shop and a day spa and a great selection of books and magazines and Oprah or Sex and the City on continuous play on a flat-screen TV with comfy couches that recline all the way back.  A room for chatting and a room for blissful, silent contemplation.  A Third Place for mothers to go, where you don’t have to listen to the sound of children or poker machines in the next room, where there’s no expectation that you’ll fold the washing or call back the client while you’re waiting for the kettle to boil.  How much would you pay for such a place?

Blokes have sheds.  Women need she’ds.  It’s time, ladies, to stand up and claim your piece of peace and declare to the world that not only do you need a Time Out but it’s going to be a long one. 

If I ever won the lottery I think I might open my own Third Place.  Membership would be open to any woman who has an hour or so to kill but nowhere to go so instead would opt to unload the dishwasher or clean up the playdoh and sigh that big sigh of a woman who wonders how she got there.

Trish Smith (2006)

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