Three Homes

Sally & Jane enjoying a summer adventure date

Keith, my boss for 15 years, used to tell me that we have three homes: one where we live, one where we go to work, and the other where we go to get away. Decades later, I’m finding deeper value in that concept.

Back then, I was managing Keith’s multi-facility club. Work was relentless, and “getting away” meant sneaking off to a back court to play racquetball, jumping into an aerobics class, or hitting the weight room. I rarely saw my live-in home, except to sleep. My true home away from home was Whitnall Park, with well-trodden paths weaving through the woods and a lovely garden. But I hardly ever had time to visit. I’d look longingly at it as I drove by on the way to work and home.

What happens when your work becomes the place you go to get away?

Nowadays, I spend more time at home than usual. This past summer, I quit a 10-year job in Richland County, where I’d spent more time driving to appointments than with clients. The work with my clients was rewarding, but the drive time was exhausting.

So all summer, after leading a class on Zoom and taking the dogs for a walk, my afternoons were peaceful. I’d start by serving lunch to Maude, my eastern box turtle. I enjoyed filling her special rock with lots of healthy goodies, then sitting back in the red chair to watch her eat. She’d carefully claw aside the carrots, broccoli, cucumbers, and even strawberries, to get to her precious Oscar Meyer wiener bits and good ol’ bananas. Her best friend, Mr. V (a vole), would scurry out from a tiny hole, snatch a piece of carrot, and zip away, only to reappear after mere seconds. Was Mr. V swallowing those pieces whole, or perhaps taking them to Mrs. V and the kiddos?

When Maude finished, she’d saunter off at an astonishingly fast clip, heading for a weedy clump of grasses where she’d take a long, deep nap. This would be my cue to fetch my own lunch and carry it to the bistro table on the back deck. No sooner would I plop down than Hans and Vincent, the resident kid goats, would appear, looking for handouts and not a bit fussy over what I had to share. Eventually, slow-moving Peepers would join us, being the elder goat at age 11.

It sounds like an ideal home life, but here’s where it gets confusing. No longer working in Richland Center, and now teaching all my exercise classes from home, I’m once again pondering Keith's theory of three homes.

What happens when you work from your home?

As it turns out, people in Blue Zones (a word coined by Dan Buettner, who studies areas of the world in which people live exceptionally long lives) also realize the importance of the three-home concept. In Blue Zones, they have what they refer to as “third spaces”—what Keith was calling our third home—where they go to get away and socialize.

The look of third spaces varies depending on the country. In Loma Linda, California, they are churches; in Sardinia, Italy, wine at 5 p.m. creates the third space. In Singapore, one hospital isn’t just for patients. It was built to draw in the community with tai chi and Zumba classes, a health-oriented restaurant, and a 2.5-acre garden on the roof where volunteers grow organic herbs, fruits, and vegetables for patients and the public.

An important function of these third spaces is to combat loneliness and isolation. According to US Surgeon General Dr. Vivek Murthy, loneliness is as bad for our well-being as smoking 15 cigarettes a day. He says it’s “more than just a bad feeling. It has real consequences for our mental and physical health. It increases our risk of depression, anxiety, and suicide. But social disconnection also raises the risk of heart disease and dementia and premature death on levels on par with smoking daily and even greater than the risks that we see associated with obesity.”

Social isolation is becoming a disease with serious health consequences. In a recent Gallup survey, 17 percent of American adults said they feel lonely, 24 percent of young adults answered the same, and 1 in 10 elderly said they are lonely too.

The idea of three homes—one where we live, one where we work, and the other where we go to get away with others (third spaces)—is an important concept Keith was schooling me on all those years ago.

After our recent dump of snow, I’m glad I work from home. If I were still driving all over the county, classes would have been canceled, as would my appointments in Richland Center. But, like everyone else, I need to be careful I don’t become too isolated.

My work life is fulfilling, and I never feel lonely when I can go out my back door and take Louisa an apple, the donkeys a carrot, or share my orange peels with the goats. But I’m also thankful for getting out on adventure dates with friends and all the wonderful events our communities offer.

Thanks to my boss’s musings four decades ago, and the Surgeon General’s recent warning, the importance of this third space has hit home for me. Maybe we all need to pay more attention to our third home and keep this third space open for our neighbors, young friends, and the elderly this winter.