I went to a concert by myself. At first, that sounds like the whole story: one person, one ticket, an evening in downtown Los Angeles. But I walked out feeling connected to a room full of people I had barely spoken to, in a space built around what sociologists call a third place: somewhere that isn’t home, isn’t work, and doesn’t ask anything of you except to show up.
This week I finally went to see The Light We Leave Behind, an immersive experience Emmit Fenn created in the Arts District. Before the music, there was a snow-covered tree. People sat near it in quiet, doing something we almost never give ourselves time to do: just observing.
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It reminded me of the way strangers stop for a sunset. Nobody needs to explain what they’re seeing. For a moment, everyone agrees to pay attention.
The Room Agreed to Pay Attention
Then we moved into a dark room surrounded by water. We reclined as Emmit played piano, and the lights moved with the notes, reflecting across the surface. Later, rain fell inside the space. I could hear individual drops. The music, the light, the water, the people sitting around me, none of them felt like background to the others. Together, they made the work.
The word I kept coming back to was moving. I felt it from the moment I walked in. Nothing asked me to be interesting, social, or productive. There was just an invitation to be present with something beautiful.
As I’d walked in, I’d been scrolling celebrity headlines from a recent award show. I was tired of the same names, the same spectacle, the endless question of who was seen and what they wore. A few minutes later I was sitting in silence with a tree, waiting to hear a piece of music I’d never heard before. The contrast brought me back to a question I don’t want to lose: what is music actually for?
For me, tonight’s answer was simple. Music can move us. Art can be made because someone feels compelled to make it, and other people can gather around it because they need to feel something too. That’s a form of success I care about deeply.
What Third Places Are For
I went alone because I wanted to be there. It was one of the easiest decisions I’ve made all year. During the show, I felt close to people I didn’t know, even though we barely spoke. We were sharing attention, and that turned out to be enough.
This isn’t just me. The sociologist Ray Oldenburg coined the term “third place” in 1989 for exactly this kind of space, somewhere people gather that isn’t the home (first place) or the office (second place). In 2023, the U.S. Surgeon General released an advisory calling loneliness and disconnection a public health crisis on the scale of smoking or obesity. Third places aren’t a nice-to-have. They’re one of the things we lost, and they’re one of the things we’re starting to quietly rebuild.
It’s happening in rooms like the one I sat in tonight. It’s happening in Seoul, where listening sessions built around nothing but sound and stillness have become popular enough that the Korea JoongAng Daily wrote about the trend. It’s happening in Berlin, where Erykah Badu performed an entire sound meditation inside a converted temple last fall, no stage banter, no setlist, just attention. People keep showing up to rooms that offer nothing but presence, and I don’t think that’s a coincidence. I think it’s a response.
That’s part of what I hope Peaceful Place can become. I lead meditation and sound baths, but what I’m trying to create is bigger than a class format. I want to make room for quiet, beauty, music, and connection. I want people to leave feeling more like themselves. And I want those spaces to be artistically alive, because peace doesn’t have to mean dullness.
If you’re craving a room like that and don’t know where to start, start smaller than you think you need to. Go somewhere alone this week. Phone off. No goal except to pay attention. A concert, a gallery, a walk at golden hour, one of our Thursday night sound baths. The practice isn’t the venue. It’s choosing presence on purpose, instead of letting the week choose it for you.
The Light I Want to Build Toward
I also left with a little ache. I wanted to be part of something like this, to bring my voice or my singing bowls into a room where sound and stillness already mattered so much. I don’t know yet what that collaboration would look like, or if it will happen. I do know I want to reach out, keep making my own work, and follow that feeling rather than talk myself out of it.
Near the end, I kept thinking about the title: The Light We Leave Behind. What stays with someone after we’ve made something, offered something, or shared a moment with them? Tonight I came home with an answer I could feel before I could put it into words.
I want to make more of this kind of light.
What’s a piece of art or a gathering that stayed with you after you left? I’d love to hear about it.
With love,
Angela
This essay first appeared on my Substack. Subscribe for new writing on sound, rest and the nervous system.
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