Intentional Places: On Where We Spend Time

I’ve begun volunteering at a local library. Up the steep stairs of an old Greek Revival-style house, artist studios share space with this small, independent lending library focused on women’s history. It drew my attention the very first evening I climbed those stairs and looked around.

I’d gone out exploring on one of our city’s “First Friday” arts open house nights. In that old brick house, I found myself marveling at the life this converted building had managed to find for itself. But then, I’ve been thinking a lot about spaces lately. 

Since beginning to work from home a few years ago, I’ve known I needed to be intentional about getting away from my desk, out of my home and among my fellow human beings. What’s felt new to me lately is the intensity of my questioning what kind of spaces I put myself in. Since November, and especially since January … what shall I call it? How can I refer to the state of the United States since then? 

What I’ll say for the moment is that I see as never before that not all spaces carry the same moral weight. Not all gatherings of people hold human dignity as a guiding force. Not all environments shape peoples’ perspectives in ways that I can honor. And so, I’ve been asking myself a lot of questions lately about the places I go. What kinds of environments do I want to seek out? What kinds of environment do I want to limit (or even eliminate) my contact with? Can I enter these spaces in different modes that will impact how I encounter people there? Questions, questions, questions – place is a complicated matter!

I retrospect, I see these questions have impacted my writing more than I realized. Last year, I wrote a short prequel to my Sacred Grounds series called Coincidentally Yours. Now that I’m looking at the story with more distance, I see clearly that I began writing it not long after the November election and finished it the week that Trump took office. It’s there in those very pages! My heroine alternates between discouragement and numbness. My chief troublemaker uses a safe-seeming place to form his manipulative, self-serving ideas. Main characters question where they’re spending their days. My own bewilderment at finding myself in a nation I didn’t recognize fills those pages! 

At least, that’s what I see. You might see other things.

I don’t think it’s bad if an author’s temporary bewilderment spills over into her fiction. I also don’t think it’s bad that Coincidentally Yours: A Sacred Grounds Novelette ends with (this shouldn’t be too much of a spoiler) the chief troublemaker not returning to the Sacred Grounds Coffee Company, where so much of the series’ action happens. Life doesn’t always work that way, I know. People who do something illegal aren’t always held accountable for it. Behavior destructive to communities doesn’t always get neutralized. I absolutely know how life can be.

And yet, I did value thinking through how to end Coincidentally Yours in a way that would allow the Sacred Grounds Coffee Company to feel like a somewhat safe and friendly space in which at least most of the main characters (and readers, too) would want to keep spending time. What would it take for a problematic space to remain or become viable? 

It’s a question I’ve been asking. I’ve taken myself out of some spaces in my own context. Where, for instance, showing up meant spending significant time with a person whom I knew from past experience didn’t want a genuine exchange of ideas, I decided the reasons to show up weren’t strong enough warrant me going. I stayed away. I’m not saying I’ll stay away from all such spaces forever more. But for the moment, though, I’ve been giving myself permission not to show up some places.

What about you? Are there places you’ve found yourself stepping away from lately? Or wanting to step away from? Or, on the other hand, are there places you’ve been especially drawn to these days?

I’ve allowed myself to be drawn to new places, too. In the same way I wanted to end my recent novelette with a setting that most of the characters would want to return to, I’ve enjoyed paying attention to the nature of places in my real world that have been calling out to me. 

Take the lending library on the second floor of that old brick house. I’m still very new to the place, but I’ve enjoyed my forays into library volunteering so far! I’ve …

• chatted with some people,
• labeled and shelved some books,
• helped prepare for a fundraiser with duties that involved distributing chocolate,
• noticed the ease that a joyful librarian creates when welcoming people with kind, extroverted energy (that would not be me, of course – profound introvert here), and
• relished supporting education on a demographic whose contributions are systematically ignored and downplayed (the work and values of DEIA – Diversity, Equity, Inclusion, and Accessibility – matter deeply and are not going away).

Maybe the bottom line is that I want to put myself in spaces that care and that encourage others to care, as well.

What about you? What kind of spaces have been speaking to you lately? Whatever they are, I’m wishing you plenty of time in them.