Hi hello,
I was having a pretty tough time last week and decided to book myself a last-minute ticket to Newcastle to see a friend (don't do this, the ticket was £120 for a standard seat, a fifth of my monthly spending budget) and then continue onwards to Scotland for a work-related thing. I was a complete mess, but my friend and her partner took me into their lovely home, fed me nutritious meals, and dragged me to the sea, where the wind felt strong and salty.
On my way back from Edinburgh to London, I began thinking about how much my life has improved since I stopped working full-time. (Disclaimer: I have weathered a pay cut because I’ve moved back home to live rent-free after being evicted from my house share.) The main benefit of having more free time has been making meaningful connections with people. Nowadays, I organise a climate book club with my friend Issey, have hours to browse through charity shops and look at left-out roadside trinkets, talk to old ladies, and attend the events I’m invited to. I’m also often one of the last people to leave a party.
So last Friday, I wasn't too stressed when travel disruptions split my direct train journey from Edinburgh to London into three separate legs. If anything, it was a chance for fascinating encounters with people from all walks of life.
On the train from Edinburgh to Newcastle, I sat near a group of lads heading down from Aberdeen. They were drinking booze and blaring Born Slippy from tinny speakers and laughing at each other. Broken away from the bigger group, two men sat opposite me on a table seat. They swallowed their drinks quietly, smiling shyly at the banter hurled in their direction.
As the train stopped at Berwick-upon-Tweed, the two men had to find new seats because a man and a woman had claimed them. The man looked like he was in his 40s and was obsessed with train stations. He showed me the names of all the stations he’s been to in the North East of England, as he had written them down on a weathered A4 notepad. The woman, of a similar age, was his carer. The man was repeatedly asking the woman the same questions, covering his ears, flapping his hands and vocally stimming. The woman seemed very kind and patient with him. The man stood up a few minutes before the train pulled in and hovered near the doors. As I got up to leave the train, the woman turned to me and explained that he has epilepsy.
“And what about autism?” I asked, knowing much of the diagnostic criteria like the back of my hand.
“He has only been diagnosed with epilepsy.”
Worried he may not be getting the right care, I suggested an autism assessment. I recognise it may not have been my place to say this, but I was scared he’d slip through the cracks.
At Newcastle, I bumped into an Australian woman I had seen at Edinburgh station a few hours earlier. She had a giant suitcase, backpack and holdalls. Her husband was at a conference in London, she said, so she was in charge of moving all the stuff to a friend's place in Stockwell, but the delayed train meant she couldn't get there in time. She spoke a lot, and I struggled to keep up with her story.
We boarded a new train, but this one was so packed there was nowhere to sit. I stood next to her, reading my book on climate change, when a drunk man asked me what my favourite quote from the book was. I said it would be too depressing. He insisted. So I read out the following passage:
“There must be theories of othering to justify sacrificing an entire geography — theories about the people who lived there being so poor and backward that their lives and culture don’t deserve protection. After all, if you’re a “hillbilly”, who cares about your hills?”
— Naomi Klein, On Fire
"But the thing is," he said after a brief pause, "what can me and you do if China and India continue polluting the planet? What difference will it make?" His friend, standing (or swaying) beside him, also got involved. It was an unexpected conversation, and we mostly disagreed, but I deemed it useful because we found some common ground.
I got off at Darlington because I didn't want to stand for the next 3.5 hours and tried my luck with another train. I sat next to a Masters' student who told me he was recovering from pulling an all-nighter to write an essay on sustainability. So we spoke about how fucked everything in a hopeful tone until the train pulled in at King’s Cross. We exchanged Instagrams in case we ever crossed paths again.
On the tube in London, I saw three people from XR's 'Big One' protest and asked how it went. They told me they had travelled from York, Cambridge and Manchester, giving me a quick rundown and a few leaflets before getting off at the next station. They seemed like lovely tired people.
In one day, I had so many fleeting yet meaningful encounters and conversations. They were full of laughter, curiosity, frustration and knowledge. Experiences like this are strangely life-affirming; a reminder that no matter how disconnected the world feels, connections can be found in whatever brief pauses we’re afforded. We just have to look for them.
The problem, of course, is that most of us are not afforded free time. It’s not uncommon nowadays for people to work multiple jobs to make ends meet, or be so perpetually burned out by work, caring for others, disabilities and so on that they don’t have the energy to socialise or even leave their homes. Though there have been successful trials of a four-day working week, it’s yet to be a national policy and doesn’t cover the most precarious workers, like those on zero-hour contracts. (I have a lot to say on this, but it’s a topic for another time).
In How To Do Nothing, Jenny Odell writes
“It is with acts of attention that we decide who to hear, who to see, and who in our world has agency. In this way, attention forms the ground not just for love, but for ethics.”
When we collectively envision a utopia and demand a fair economy, free healthcare, affordable housing and nationalised transport systems, I also want to consider where free time fits into all of this. We all deserve free time for observation, leisure, pleasure and joy. We deserve free time for stupid, silly meaningful and meaningless encounters.
Some work I’ve done recently:
Novara Media: Is Extinction Rebellion still ‘Beyond Politics’?
Novara Media: Is Extinction Rebellion’s structure fit for purpose?
What I’ve enjoyed this week:
I LOVED Anahit Behrooz’s' ‘The Radical Potential of Female Friendship’, out now!
What a lovely post to read, this absolutely made my day.