Welcome to Issue #014 of Sojourn. Each week, I share two original essays to help you slow down, reconnect, and rebuild with intention (hence ‘sojourn’), in a private community that uses travel as a path to reinvention.
THE SPACES WE FORGET
When we think of hotels, we picture the suite, the view, the bed. But the truth is, what stays with us often isn’t the room at all.
It’s the quiet of a hallway after a long day.
It’s the way light shines on a staircase.
It’s the pause in a lobby that feels more like a living room than a stage.
Designers call these the “in-between” spaces. And as Robb Report recently noted, they’re no longer background—they’re the brand.
WHAT CHANGED FOR ME
I first noticed this during a stay where I can’t recall every detail of the suite… but I remember the corridor to get there. It was warm, dimly lit, almost cocoon-like, and alive with beautiful exotic plants. I slowed down without even trying.
That single transition shaped the entire memory of the trip.
Not the bed. Not the bathroom.
The in~between.
THE DESIGN OF TRANSITIONS
Hotels are catching on:
Lobbies that open like living rooms.
Stairwells with art or texture that invite pause.
Terraces that turn waiting into ritual.
The point isn’t decoration, it’s regulation. These spaces set the pace of the stay, guiding how we move, rest, and remember.
HOW THIS APPLIES TO REINVENTION
Life works the same way.
Reinvention doesn’t always happen in the big rooms of our lives—the job, the relationship, the milestone. It happens in the moment between:
Between careers.
Between roles.
Between who we were and who we’re becoming.
The in-between isn’t wasted time. It’s formative space.
A REFLECTIVE INVITATION TO REINVENT
Think of this as a guided pause rather than a checklist.
If you’re going through a transition, the spaces between roles, routines, or relationships can feel disorienting.
But they can also be formative… the corridors that ‘quietly’ guide you to what’s next.
My role here isn’t to give you answers, but to help you see those spaces differently: not as empty gaps, but as ‘rooms’ that can hold you until you’re ready to step forward.
YOUR ROOM OF PAUSE
So let’s ask together:
Where in your life are you “in-between”?
How might you shape that in-between space so it supports you rather than unsettles you?
What elements—light, stillness, ritual, or rhythm—would bring calm into it?
The way you design this pause, even with the smallest cues, becomes the architecture of your reinvention.
You just need to take that step forward.
JOURNAL PROMPTS TO TRY
What is one “in-between” space in my life right now, and how does it feel to stand there?
If I could design this space with light, rhythm, or ritual, what would I add or remove?
Where have I felt most held before—on a trip, at home, in a pause—and what made it feel safe?
How might I treat this transition not as a gap, but as a room designed to guide me forward?
THE SHIFT
Because in the end, the suite is rarely what we carry home.
It’s the subtle transitions that shape the memory.
And maybe reinvention is no different: it isn’t only about the destination, but how we choose to design the spaces between.
~Ana