‘Thin Places’ and Life Abroad

This past week I came across a New York Times article called Where Heaven and Earth Come Closer by Eric Weiner in which he speaks about ‘Thin Places’ and moments he’d stumbled upon them during his life as a global traveler. Weiner describes Thin Places as ‘locales where the distance between heaven and earth collapses and we’re able to catch glimpses of the divine, or the transcendent or, as I like to think of it, the Infinite Whatever.’ He says that Thin Places are not easily come by, and at times can take a bit of work to get to. And, of course, they are entirely subjective; one person’s Thin Place may be a ‘Thick Place’ for someone else.

When someone asks me my religious beliefs, the easiest answer I can give them is agnostic. It’s generic and something most people understand without inviting more probing questions. But in truth it is more complicated than that. Sure, I am agnostic, I don’t know what’s out there or even if there is something out there, but I find solace in many religious ideas and concepts, taken from every major religion in the world. Christianity is what I was raised on, and whenever I’m in Seattle will attend worship at my home church. I look forward to the candlelight service on Christmas Eve for the entire year, and it is, in fact, one of my Thin Places. But over time I’ve come to distrust the Jesus aspect of Christianity, which has lead to a consideration of Judaism. Ever since learning about The Five Pillars in middle school, I’ve had an interest in Islam, and this past summer I was introduced to Rumi, who I cannot seem to get out of my head. And the spiritual aspects of Eastern religions have always been appealing to me – just ask my mom how many books I’ve read on Buddhist monks or the Thai Hill Tribes. But I think the best, most accurate description of my religious beliefs is this idea of Thin Places.

Once reading this article, I began thinking of the multitude of Thin Places I’ve experienced in my life. Seattle is full of them – Gasworks at night with my friends in high school, watching downtown light up from the top of the hill, Camp Sealth on Vashon Island and Seabeck on the Hood Canal have always been especially Thin for me. Three years ago when I visited both Mount St. Helens and the San Juan Islands with my family I had moments of Thinness along the way. And perhaps the most Thin spot for me in Seattle is my own living room. When I wake up early and find myself becoming distracted from my book at hand to watch the dawn peak its way above the Cascades, my dog’s head in my lap begging for attention, it’s a place I feel entirely safe and secure. I’ve watched countless sunrises from that living room, none the same, and each one more brilliant than the one before.

Leaving my home has also given me more Thin Places: I feel wholly complete standing on a side street in New York City as buildings rise up to touch the sky on either side of me, or tucked in to a theater on Broadway watching Wicked. I love Whistler for the Thinness I feel while I’m there, folded into the valley between those two massive white mountains. Boston, filled with work and school and social engagements, is most of the time, quite ‘thick,’ but there are times when I head to Punters with great friends to sit in a broken booth in one of the worst bars in Boston to drink even worse beer, that I find myself in a Thin Place (though that could just be the beer I’m thinking of…). And New England fall excursions with my sorority that take me Apple Picking and to Salem when the leaves are turning orange and beginning to fall lead me to Thin Places. Or this past summer when the roof of my apartment building became thin, holding all of my friends, the Prudential Tower glowing brightly in the background. And I believe every bookstore I come across is Thin, for a place full of so much literature, stuffed with stories and words and new worlds, always will be for me.

But leaving my home country is when I stumble upon Thin Places most frequently. I went to France almost a decade ago, but I remember moments – standing underneath the Eiffel Tower and looking up, or sitting in the small café in our hotel in Paris that was barely much bigger eating a breakfast of bread and croissants and drinking bottomless cups of coffee and hot chocolate. When I go to Thailand, every visit to a temple is Thin for me, from the time I first slip off my shoes at the door. Watching paper lanterns fill the night sky in Chiang Mai during New Years fills me with awe, and the sensation of an elephant wrapping it’s trunk around your neck ignites a feeling that is hard to describe. Even simply standing on a street in Bangkok to watch daily life pass me by can be Thin – monks wrapped in orange disembarking from the backs of trucks at a temple entrance, children in uniforms heading home from school, vendors selling every sort of imaginable fried treat, and motorcycles zipping by carrying more than could fit in the back of our minivan.

Here in South Africa, my life is heaped with such moments as well. The entire weekend I spent in Cape Point last year, watching one of my first South African sunsets disappear behind the fields of Fynbos. Every road trip I’ve every taken: to Swaziland and Kruger, Hermanus, the Eastern Cape. Reaching the top after hiking both Table Mountain and Lion’s Head; even just walking down Victoria Street, oak trees lining the path on either side of the road. And every time I drive into town from Stellenbosch there is a moment when the road carves through green farmland that lead up to rocky mountains on either side, Table Mountain off in the distance ahead, when I experience a swell of affirmation that I am in the right place. There are some weeks when every time I walk out of my front door I enter a Thin Place.

I’ve spent the last year struggling to find a way to describe how it felt to live in South Africa, why I feel so pulled to this place. My friends did not understand how I could be so happy here, what was it about South Africa that I couldn’t find in Boston, or Seattle or within America, and I think this might be it. I don’t know if South Africa has more of these places for me than other countries or regions, I think not, I’ve just spent the most time here, one reason why I now feel called to explore parts of the world I’ve never been to. The Middle East, Central and South America, India and Tibet – all sound extremely appealing to me. I don’t know where the rest of my life will lead me, but hopefully I will discover endless amounts of Thin Places along the way, and wherever I end up.