A review of The Places Where There Are Spaces
“There is infinite beauty to behold in the unplanned, unspecific moments that make up our lives. Rarely recognized or deliberate, they just happen….” Indeed–and so it was that recently, feet planted firmly in the sand with warm beach air blowing in my face this past August, I found myself reading Lisa Hopkins’ altogether wonderful The Places Where There Are Spaces: Cultivating a Life of Creative Possibilities at the suggestion of a family member who has known the author for many years.
“They exist both in the extraordinary and, sometimes especially, in the seemingly mundane. Unattached to outcomes or goals, these moments are abundant in their capacity to evoke and delight, and yet are scarcely known–often overlooked–in our race to ‘live’ our lives… They show up when you are least expecting them and unfold and transform only when you stop long enough to notice them.”
This quirky little book–unassuming, serious, light, and heavy all at once–covers its ground in only 235 pages. However light its author’s touch, and there is a profound gentleness on offer here, every page is heavily weighted with intention. I was struck that even the acknowledgements section was so humbly written. I point out that quality of humility because it infuses the entire work even as the author, a renowned professional in the dance and theatre production world and certified life coach, writes from the perspective of someone who clearly knows what she brings to the table as a multifaceted, creative individual. Clearly, she has done “the work” to come into that mindset.
This book spoke to something I have been recently thinking around. In so much of my work–from students and groups I facilitate in learning and personal development to individuals I mentor one-to-one or work with in therapy–I am focused on building a particular kind of community in which people are able to more readily notice and sit with the quiet moments, the breakthroughs, the small and big wins, losses, challenges, and even the mundane moments of their lives. I have found that relating, person-to-person, can be quite the powerful mediator of such experience.
This requires, of course, I do my own listening for the quiet seconds and minutes that many people do not take the time to witness or even acknowledge exist. This, for me, is about noticing the moments and filling them not with busyness or action and, indeed, not with “doing” at all, but with silent presence and full attention.
In any moment, life asks an urgent question: “What now?” How do we respond; by doing? Probably most of the moments one will think of call for specific responses in carrying out the myriad activities of living. What is offered to readers of this book is the invitation to notice what unfolds in the time between the moments of action. Moments in which one can simply listen and bear witness, where we don’t. Have. To do. Anything. _______ Where it is
okay.
To pause;
and breathe—
Where there is a space.
Where it is fundamentally okay and valid to merely notice and let flow the moment. To process and reflect. Sometimes, like people, that is all a moment calls for. To be known, accepted, and appreciated exactly as it is.
I think, as I write this, of a time I was taking a photo of a rainbow: how a couple came up to me, wondering what I was doing looking at the sky and, having the rainbow pointed out, glanced briefly up with a dismissive “oh, that’s very nice” before quickly rushing off to continue with their day. I think of so many other such moments people did not even bother to inquire what I was looking at.
We live in a society that just does not slow down. 24hr news cycles; constantly updating social media feeds; algorithms recommending content on every webpage; products shoved in our faces at every turn, whether on the computer, television, or at the gas station (many of which now have TV screens at the pump). Loud as the cacophony of intermingling voices can be on its own, just about every restaurant or public space has some degree of music blasting out through an overhead audio system. Extra, extra, extra; more, more, more. This world is noisy.
Fred Rogers spoke of how understanding and appreciation for being in the world come from contemplation, akin to the ways in which, when reading a book, we assimilate information from within the white spaces between the paragraphs on the page–from wondering, pondering, sitting in the silence.
Getting at this idea in a similar manner, Lisa Hopkins’ central thesis–communicated through meditations, affirmations, short bursts of informational prose, and anecdotes which will surely resonate with those in the performing arts field–cuts through the noise so that readers come away better equipped to find the quiet moments in their own lives. Indeed, what does it mean even to experience a “quiet moment?”
These are entirely personal matters which words struggle to capture; ideas which appear simple until one sits with and really tries to comprehend their essence. That statement sums up this book: Simple but profound; difficult to review on the basis of content yet full of ideas which, when considered at length, may open willing readers’ minds to new possibilities.
In recognizing and sitting with the quiet moments of our lives, there is a chance to live the realizations and learnings they offer–attributes and qualities like mindfulness of time and space, equanimity, existentialism, awe–forward into other areas of our lives. That, for me, is what living creatively means in the context of this book. It is a message not just for tap dancers, stage performers, and entrepreneurs to self-actualize their abilities, but for all of us—to open ourselves to new ways of being and experiencing. It is not dissimilar to psychologist Carl Rogers’ idea of the fully functioning person who has come to be more open to experiences, self-trusting in and accepting of their own decisions and feelings, and strives to live in an authentic manner aligned with their beliefs and values.
The transition—read: space—from one music note to the next, demonstrated magnificently in the above adaptation of a piece by Bach. The sun rising in the early morning sky, night giving way to day; a butterfly settling on a flower; the steam glinting off one’s morning coffee or afternoon tea. Appreciation for the time it takes to transition between one’s daily activities. The laughter of children playing in the park. All these and many other fleeting glimmers appear to us if only we are willing to slow down, wait, and wonder. That is the message of The Places Where There Are Spaces. What spaces might you find?
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