Good morning! I’ve been reading Jennifer Wallace’s Mattering on vacation this week, and something in it keeps returning to me.

Wallace writes about mattering not as a luxury or an abstraction, but as a fundamental human need. Like, it’s everything – the need to feel seen. To feel that your presence in the world registers with other people.

I found myself constantly underlining and, almost immediately, thinking about what you, Rachael, Bryan, and I have built with Walk with a Doc and why it seems to work in ways that go beyond the walking itself.

Many of our lives orbit two environments: home and work. A third space is something different. It is a place where our job title, our productivity, or our household role does not define us. It is where we simply show up as human beings.

These spaces are quietly disappearing. And with that disappearance comes something we are all feeling more acutely: disconnection.

Ray Oldenburg, sociologist, originally described third spaces as informal public gathering places: cafés, parks, libraries (I’m married to a librarian), barber shops, and community centers. Wallace deepens this through the lens of mattering, the deeply human need to feel acknowledged in ordinary, unstructured ways. Not in grand gestures, but in the texture of daily life.

That is where Walk with a Doc fits in. Not as a program. Not as an initiative. But as a living, breathing third space.

When someone shows up to a Walk with a Doc event, they are stepping outside of the roles that typically define them. They are not patients in an exam room. Not a provider behind a computer. Not a caregiver managing logistics. They are simply a person walking alongside other people, often strangers, in shared motion.

Something interesting happens in that simplicity. Conversation becomes easier. Hierarchy dissolves. Curiosity replaces formality. A cardiologist might find themselves talking about grief, or gardening, or aging with a retired teacher they just met. A patient might ask a question they would never think to raise in a rushed clinic visit. Or they might not ask anything at all, and simply feel the relief of being in motion with others.

Third spaces, like Walk with a Doc, work precisely because they are not transactional. No one is there to sell anything. No one is there to perform. There is no agenda beyond walking together. That lack of agenda isn’t a weakness. It’s the point.

A clinic is essential, but it is structured around problem-solving. Home carries its own roles and responsibilities. A third space allows for something different: presence without expectation. People can be seen without needing to be fixed. To matter is not only to be loved in close relationships, but to be acknowledged in community.

It is the nod from a stranger on the path. The doctor who is also just another walker, not above or apart. The shared rhythm of footsteps that says, quietly, you are not doing this alone.

As Walk with a Doc continues to grow (Thank you, by the way, our phones have been popping like we accidentally poured way too many Rice Krispies and now we’re dumping in milk like the ratio has to be perfect) Where was I… yes… as we move forward together, I think less about expansion in terms of numbers and more about expansion in terms of space creation.

How many towns, cities, and neighborhoods can have a place where health and humanity overlap so naturally that it feels almost invisible?

The most powerful third spaces are not complicated. They are consistent, welcoming, and low-barrier. They do not demand anything except showing up.

In a world where so much pulls us into isolation or performance, a simple walk can become a quiet form of resistance. A reminder that health is not only what happens in a clinic or a gym. It is what happens between us when we are moving through the world together.

That is what a third space offers.

And I think that may be one of the most important things we’ve all built.

Peace and Love from the UK,

David