View from the Pew, September 2020: Across the pond and back

As many of you probably know, Richard, Emma and I recently returned home from a year in England, in what was, essentially, a protracted exercise in significantly changing how we live. We traded our 2,400 square foot American home, with its modern conveniences and sizable backyard, for an 1,100 square foot semi-detached house with a postage-stamp garden. I spent the year doing laundry in a tiny washing machine located in the kitchen. I hung our wet clothes on a line in the garden or – if it was rainy – on the wooden laths of an overhead “airer” that we cranked up and down using a rope and pulley. Since we decided to forgo a car, I did most of my shopping by bicycle with the help of two large, waterproof panniers. Emma cycled the mile to and from school rather than taking a bus; school buses are unheard-of in England.

Over the course of the year we began using the outdoors as the British do: as an extra room. Except for three months of dark and drear known as November, December, and January, we went almost daily to Jesus Green, the large park near our house, to walk, play, picnic, and meet with friends. We flew kites, played frisbee, fed the ducks, and watched the moorhen chicks hatch in the spring.

When the pandemic hit, we started relying more and more on our garden as a place to socialize. We were separated from our neighbors on either side by a 5-foot garden fence. We barely saw the couple on the right; they seemed involved in a state of near-constant home renovation and kept to themselves. Our neighbors on the left, however, we got to know well. They spent lockdown working in their garden, fixing up a disused fish pond and teaching their young son to hit golf balls with incredible accuracy into a metal cup.

A Cambridge friend of ours spent a year living with her family in Portland in the late 1990s. They rented a suburban house that sat in the middle of a large lawn and purchased a car for the year. My friend became depressed by the isolation she felt. She wondered at the loneliness of Americans who were so disconnected from their neighbors in their big, detached homes sitting atop a sea of manicured grass. Driving everywhere, rather than walking or biking, made her feel even worse. She couldn't wait to get back to Glasgow, where they were living at the time.

The lesson for us is plain: When we “made do” with just a bit less, we have the opportunity to gain quite a bit more. By giving up some of what we take for granted – like the “fact” that a successful American family has two cars in their garage, the newest appliances, and a lawn large enough for a riding mower – we gain a window into others' lives and an opportunity to grow from sharing space and time with strangers. How we incorporate these truths into our lives remains to be seen, but we feel so, so grateful at the opportunity to learn these truths during our experience abroad.