Sometimes, on the way home from a day out, Jim and I find ourselves talking about someone we met. The person behind the counter at a coffee shop. An artist who told us how a piece came together. Someone who recommended a place to eat and, in doing so, gave us a reason to take the long way home.
We may have set out with a destination in mind, but those are often the things we remember. We carry the stories between us, turning them over, adding what each of us noticed.
I recently came across poet Donald Hall’s idea of a “third thing” in a marriage: something that draws two people’s attention beyond themselves and gives them a shared place to look. It gave me words for something Jim and I have been discovering… not all at once, but through years of small invitations. “Come look at this.” “We should try that.” “I think you’d like to meet her.”
For us, it has become a way of moving through the world together. And lately, I’ve begun to see that all those moments may be gathering into something more.
A Place at the Table: Food and Coffee Shops
Food is often where we begin.
A meal made fresh, with care. Bread still warm when it reaches the table. Something prepared from a recipe that has belonged to a family longer than anyone can quite remember. We love finding places where someone has put a little of themselves into what they serve.
Coffee shops have a particular place in our travels. Sometimes they are the destination; sometimes they are where we stop to decide what comes next. We settle in with our cups, look around, and get a feel for the place. There might be local art on the walls, a stack of community newspapers, or a conversation that leads us somewhere we hadn’t planned to go.
I love how much you can learn about a town by sitting still in it for a while.
Who gathers there? What are they making? What do they care about? Where do they tell you to go when you ask what you shouldn’t miss?
Jim and I have learned to ask those questions together. One of us might notice the details; the other starts a conversation. Then the afternoon opens in a direction neither of us could have planned alone. There is almost always a story waiting beyond the first question.
Handmade Art & Craft
As a maker, I’m drawn to things that carry evidence of the hands that made them.
A pottery mug has weight and texture. An old quilt holds decisions made stitch by stitch. A painting offers a glimpse of what someone noticed and felt compelled to put into the world.
I want to know about those decisions. What inspired the work? Who taught them? How long did they carry the idea before they began?
Jim is part of these discoveries, too. We pause at the same displays, listen to the same stories, and see what catches each other’s eye. Sometimes we bring something home. Sometimes we leave with a name, a conversation, or a new appreciation for a craft we knew very little about.
Either way, we leave with something to share. Later, back at home, we may remember the person who made it, the place where we found it, or the moment one of us said, “Look at this.” The things I treasure most in our home hold these connections. Living among them feels like keeping company with the stories they carry… and with the moments Jim and I gathered along the way.
What We’ve Curated
When I think about a curated life, I think about that kind of attention.
Over time, we choose what to make room for: what we bring into our homes, where we spend an afternoon, the places we return to, and the relationships we tend.
Some of those choices are small: taking our coffee in a handmade cup, buying from an artist we’ve met, making a meal and inviting someone to stay. Yet repeated over the years, they give a life its particular character.
Jim and I are gathering that life together. There are places we still want to see, foods we want to try, and people whose work we want to know more about. There are also familiar roads, favorite tables, and people we’re always glad to see again.
The more we notice, the more our curiosity seems to connect one thing to another. A meal leads to a conversation; a conversation leads to a place; a place introduces us to someone whose work we want to remember. What began as a shared pleasure in discovery is becoming part of how we see, choose, and make meaning of our days.
What Takes Root
Travel has made me more attentive to belonging.
Every place we visit has people tending it… keeping a family recipe alive, opening the shop each morning, making art, restoring an old building, or creating somewhere others can gather.
I think of roots when I meet those people. Of what they have inherited, what they have chosen to nurture, and what they hope will continue.
I think about our own roots, too: the people and places that formed us, the work of our hands, the meals and conversations that have become part of our life together.
Maybe this is how a third thing takes shape… not as a plan we sat down to make, but as something we begin to recognize after turning toward the same things, again and again. The places we visit, the people we meet, the beauty we bring home, the stories we keep telling each other: they are becoming part of a shared way of looking at the world.
And now, some of those stories are asking to be carried a little farther. We’re beginning to imagine how to gather them alongside our own, and how to make room for others to sit with them, too. We’re giving that feeling time and care, letting it show us what it wants to become.
For now, this is where I want to begin: with gratitude for the life Jim and I get to explore together, and curiosity about what we’ll find around the next corner.
