The in-between space

I have found, within the walls of my bestie’s flat, a site of refuge unlike every other ‘home’ I have inhabited. As there is no official name for such a precious place, I have coined a term of my own

I am so elated to be writing this dispatch on home turf. It has been two days since I landed in India. I haven’t stepped out of my bestie’s apartment ever since I arrived here directly from the airport. I have been soaking in her presence, even though she wasn’t home when I got in. She had moved apartments three years ago, almost. I’ve been re-orienting myself within what constitutes her present familiar and every day and delighting in the discoveries I make of things that once belonged to me, that inhabited my old apartment, that I had bequeathed to her care. A framed photograph by an ex-flatmate of Shahpur Jat, books, ceramic bowls I served countless meals in, and other such paraphernalia that I had felt teary-eyed parting with. Returning three years later and seeing these objects once again evokes a warm, fuzzy feeling. Unexpectedly, there’s an accompanying sense of detachment that I couldn’t foresee at the time.

By the time you read this column, I will be reunited with my parents in Goa. Once there, I must go through all the cartons I had delivered to our home in Navelim back in May 2020. I had, at the time, already sorted through all my books, only keeping the ones to which I felt most attached or that were signed by their authors. Now I’ll have to make a narrower selection so I can send the ones I want to keep to my new home in Tramin and perhaps donate the rest to a reading library in Goa. I know there is a box of objects from my old apartment that I felt unable to part with then. I’ve already decided I will gift them to a dear friend who has recently moved to Goa. The thought of this final dissemination of my things makes me feel lighter. Living with my mother-in-law who is the opposite of a hoarder has helped me learn to embrace minimalism for its elegant possibilities. I no longer archive things like before. I have committed to the hygiene of getting rid of things that have possibly outlived their use or not adopting too much to begin with. Emptying out my apartment back in 2020 helped me understand the vital importance of living less messily, of having a regularly updated inventory of what exists within one’s household in order to avoid cluttering. It’s a liberating feeling.

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I’ve been thinking a lot about the concept of the ‘third place’ proposed by the sociologist Ray Oldenburg in his 1989 book The Great Good Place. It is meant to refer to spaces that are outside the realm of the first and second place, usually signified by one’s home and work environment. In the Wikipedia entry, I read that the ‘first place’ is the home and the people a person lives with. The second place is the workplace, where people spend most of their time. Third places, then, are ‘anchors of community life and facilitate and foster broader, more creative interaction’. In order words, ‘your third place is where you relax in public, where you encounter familiar faces and make new acquaintances’. Since I chanced across the term on someone’s TikTok channel, I’ve been trying to think about what turf presently constitutes my ‘third place’ and what relation might my best friend’s home occupy within Oldenburg’s classification. I had imagined that Mona’s home was my third place, but it doesn’t satisfy the outlined characteristics, even though it has always been a home away from home. I suppose the outdoor world of Tramin is my third place, even though I am still in the process of finding community and a sense of belonging. Walking through the streets I am constantly greeting people I know and ever since this one-page article about my life was published in the German-language local newspaper, I have had a lot more strangers talk to me than before, and more graciously, too.

Maybe a term has yet to be conceived to demarcate the realm of the domestic within female friendship. Or if it does exist, I am not privy to it. But there is something so particular and specific that I was looking forward to encountering when I chose to spend a few days in Delhi at Mona’s home. Maybe, for all the years that she has been living in her own apartment, I have found, within her walls, a site of refuge that is unlike every other ‘home’ I have inhabited, including my own. When I am in her space I think I give myself permission to vegetate, to engage in leisure, to be both guest and host. I slip into a protective bubble. I remember so many times when I casually dropped by and ended up leaving two days later. I have often gone directly to hers after arriving back in Delhi from a trip, knowing that her cook would feed me and knowing that even if she wasn’t there, it was still home. It’s such a precious space to inhabit and occupy that I am bewildered there is no name for it. Maybe ‘the in-between’ space can suffice for now, one that has no place within a hierarchy, that exists beyond the realms of other places, a site of friendship, love, nurture and grace.

Deliberating on the life and times of Everywoman, Rosalyn D’Mello is a reputable art critic and the author of A Handbook For My Lover. She tweets @RosaParx
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