Member-only story
Travelling Gave Me the Community I Never Found in a Decade of Living in London
How a small village in Wales restored my faith in humanity
“Lovely day isn’t it!”
“Do you need a hand with those bags?”
“How’s that dodgy knee fairing?”
Small exchanges — but mighty in their repercussions. As humans, at the root of everything, we want to feel seen. So a simple gesture to your fellow neighbour or stranger can have more impact than you think.
In the UK, and more than half of us Brits feel distant from them. Was it social media that started to create more insular societies? Or a string of political calamities that subconsciously made us build walls around ourselves?
I moved around regularly when I lived in London—what with break-ups, and exponential rental prices — and never fully got acquainted with each of my neighbourhoods. Whatever spare time I had in my 50-hour-work-week would go toward meeting friends or dating, and to be truthful, if I heard a rustle at my neighbour's door as I was leaving, I’d hang back a minute, peering through the keyhole to wait for the coast to be clear.
