The Space Between

The Extraordinary Life of Ordinary Places

For as long as I can remember, I’ve tied my shoes sitting on the front step.

Different houses. Different neighbourhoods. Different chapters of life. But somewhere along the way, without ever consciously deciding to make it a habit, the front step became part of my morning ritual.

I sit down, put on my shoes, tie my laces, and eventually stand up to begin whatever the day has in store.

Nothing particularly remarkable about that.

Except I’ve come to realize that quite a lot happens in those few moments.

Sometimes I’m thinking about the day ahead. The conversations I expect to have. The responsibilities waiting for me. Things I’m looking forward to and others I’m less enthusiastic about confronting. There’s often an interesting mixture of anticipation, confidence, uncertainty, and occasionally a little apprehension.

Other mornings, my thoughts wander backward.

I remember other days that began on the very same step. Some turned out wonderfully. Others, not so much. Sometimes I think about the front steps of houses I haven’t lived in for decades, and the people, relationships, and circumstances that belonged to those places.

I remember who I was then. Or at least who I thought I was.

And occasionally, I wonder what that younger version of me might think about the life I’ve lived since.

All of this while tying my shoes.

There’s something rather extraordinary about that.

The Phenomenon of the In-Between

Sociologist Ray Oldenburg introduced the concept of third places: informal gathering spaces beyond home and work where people develop relationships, experience belonging, and find a sense of community.

Coffee shops, libraries, neighbourhood gathering places. The places where life happens outside the more structured environments that typically organize our days.

I’ve always appreciated the concept, but lately I’ve been thinking about another kind of place.

Not somewhere we deliberately go to socialize, escape, or find entertainment.

Somewhere we simply pass through.

The front step isn’t really a third place in Oldenburg’s sense. It’s neither particularly social nor separate from home. It’s a threshold, an in-between space that belongs a little to both worlds without belonging entirely to either.

And I wonder whether these seemingly insignificant spaces sometimes serve an equally important human purpose.

Anthropologists use the term liminality to describe the experience of being between established states or stages. It’s often associated with transitions, rites of passage, and the uncertainty of becoming something different.

But not every transition is dramatic.

Some happen every morning.

The front step is where I move from the familiarity of home into the largely unknown circumstances the day will bring. It’s where my private life meets the expectations, relationships, responsibilities, and unpredictability beyond my door.

For a brief moment, I haven’t quite left one world or entered the other.

I’m simply there.

And perhaps that’s what makes the experience so interesting.

Small Places, Big Feelings

We tend to associate meaningful reflection with particular settings.

A quiet lakeshore. A mountain trail. A place of worship. A retreat. Somewhere sufficiently removed from the noise and demands of daily life that we can finally hear ourselves think.

We also tend to imagine mindfulness as something we deliberately practise, requiring dedicated time, intentional breathing, or a conscious effort to quiet the mind.

All of these can be valuable.

But I wonder whether our ability to be mindful narrows when we associate it primarily with special places or prescribed practices. Sometimes awareness finds us in the middle of doing something completely ordinary.

A familiar smell brings back a childhood memory. A particular song reminds us of someone we haven’t seen in years. The afternoon light falling across a kitchen table suddenly connects us to a moment we thought we’d forgotten.

And for me, a front step holds more emotional significance than an entire journey to somewhere extraordinary. The physical space itself may be unremarkable, but our relationship with it is anything but.

Over time, ordinary places accumulate meaning.

They become associated with experiences, people, departures, returns, hopes, disappointments, and the innumerable versions of ourselves that have occupied them.

We don’t necessarily notice this accumulation while it’s happening. Until one day we do, and a place we’ve passed through a thousand times reveals a depth we hadn’t previously considered.

The Spiritual Life of Ordinary Moments

I think there’s something spiritual about this, although not necessarily in a religious sense.

For me, spirituality includes moments when we feel a deeper connection to our lives, when the boundaries between memory, emotion, identity, and belonging become a little less distinct.

It’s the recognition that we’re more than whatever occupies our immediate attention.

We’re also the people we’ve been, the relationships we’ve known, the experiences we’ve carried, and the possibilities we’re still moving toward.

Sitting on the front step, I sometimes encounter all of those things at once.

There’s gratitude for what has been. Affection for people and places that exist now mostly in memory. An awareness of things I might have done differently. The anticipation of experiences that haven’t happened yet.

There’s also something reassuring about the continuity of the ritual itself.

The houses have changed. My responsibilities have changed. People have come and gone from my daily life. My understanding of the world, and certainly of myself, has evolved considerably.

But I’ve kept finding my way to a front step to tie my shoes.

Perhaps rituals like this do something important for us, even when we don’t recognize them as rituals.

They provide continuity amid change.

They remind us, quietly and without explanation, that we belong to a life with a history.

The Comfort of Returning

I appreciate another dimension to the front step.

It’s not only where I leave. It’s where I return.

Some mornings, I leave feeling optimistic and prepared. Other mornings, less so. And occasionally, I leave knowing the day ahead may be particularly difficult. There’s something comforting about knowing that, whatever unfolds, I’ll eventually come back through the same space.

I’ll step across that familiar threshold carrying whatever the day has given me. Sometimes satisfaction. Sometimes exhaustion. Sometimes frustration, disappointment, or unexpected joy.

The person returning may not feel quite like the person who left, and yet the step remains.

I don’t want to overstate its significance. It’s a step, after all. People sit on them, stand on them, sweep them, shovel snow from them, and occasionally trip over them.

But perhaps that’s precisely the point.

The things that ground us don’t always announce themselves as important.

Sometimes their meaning develops through repetition, familiarity, and the accumulated weight of ordinary experience. Sometimes, we only recognize their value when we intentionally notice what happens there.

Perhaps That’s the Phenomenon

We spend much of our lives searching for meaningful experiences.

We travel to remarkable places, pursue new opportunities, establish ambitious goals, and seek moments that promise to make us feel more connected, fulfilled, or alive.

There’s nothing wrong with any of that, but I wonder how much meaning we overlook because it arrives without spectacle.

How many small rituals have quietly accompanied us through the years? How many ordinary places have become repositories of memory and emotion without our noticing? How often do we pass through moments that might offer genuine perspective, simply because we’re preoccupied with getting somewhere else?

Perhaps mindful awareness isn’t always about clearing our thoughts or becoming completely absorbed in the present, but about noticing how much of our past and future is alive in the present moment. Groundedness isn’t something we have to travel somewhere to find.

It may already exist in the familiar spaces where we briefly recognize ourselves amid life's constant movement. I’ve sat on front steps before some of the best days of my life, and before some of the hardest.

I’ve returned to them carrying joy, disappointment, exhaustion, gratitude, and occasionally a little more wisdom than I left with.

The houses have changed. The steps have changed.

So have I.

But for a minute or two, as I tie my shoes, there’s a place where memories and anticipation meet, where the past feels close, and the future hasn’t quite begun. A small, solitary space between the comfort of home and the uncertainty of everything beyond it.

And I know that, at the end of the day, I’ll cross that same threshold again.

I’m glad I have that space.

Maybe you have one, too.

Sometimes the smallest places hold the largest parts of our lives.

Phenomena Friday | HOPE Alliance

Hope without action is wishful thinking.