Shared spaces, part 1

The public kind

I’ve been noodling with an idea for some time of writing a piece about the aesthetic beauty of shared public spaces. Events in my Airbnb this past week have expanded the scope of my noodling. To get specific: a woman has moved into another unit in this building and shown up on what I’ve been thinking of as my balcony, hanging her wet underwear on what I’ve been thinking of as my drying rack.

Now that my thoughts on the loveliness of shared public spaces have gotten muddled, I may need more than one week to work this out. I’m preoccupied now with the nuances of public vs. private, shared vs. exclusive, and the many points existing somewhere between public shared spaces and private exclusive domains. These thoughts may take a few weeks of posts to sort out.

For this week, I’ll look at some of the shared public spaces I’ve encountered.

Czechia has a great network of hiking trails throughout the country. The person who guided me on this hike in 2016 told me that it dates back to Soviet times when travel was restricted. Rather than travel abroad on their holidays, Czech people would take extensive hiking treks in their own country.