They say it takes a proverbial village for the success of many aspects of life. It takes a village to help you parent or recover from or cope with mental illness, for example. But what about moving to an actual physical village? How does such a move impact life?
We made the move from a town with a population of around 125,000 to a village of 750 people, give or take a few. Our family moved from one of the most densely populated provinces of to one of the most sparsely populated. We moved out of a built-up area to a rural community.
And it has changed our lives completely.
The Beating Heart
Most things in our village are small scale. The school is a typical village school. There are no shops or other facilities for daily life necessities. A bike or a car is essential for grocery shopping, library visits, the cinema or theatre or dinner out.
But what is large scale is the heart and soul of our village and the people living here.
There’s a thriving community center with activities for young and old. There’s a village soccer club. Once a week the senior residents meet up and primary school children help out with activities arranged for them. The seniors also eat together monthly – a volunteer does the cooking for them.
The church is run by volunteers. They bring the community together for those special moments of the year; for celebration, remembrance or in our moments of grief.
Community
Parents help each other out. Neighbors look out for each other. Children go to school together, play together, grow together.
It seems to me that people are friendlier and have more time for each other. I think it’s attributable to the slower pace of life.
When you live in our village, you are a part of a community. You are seen. You have a voice. And that is something that we missed in the town we called home for so many years before moving here.
Nature
By moving to a village we gained a sense of belonging. We gained nature too. We are surrounded by fields, farmland and woodland. Where we live is green, beautiful and peaceful. We can see a spectacular sunset at the end of our garden most summer evenings. An owl flies over our garden at dusk. Bats make their nightly outings from the holly tree in our garden.
We have space too. Living space that evaded us back in the town we lived in. It’s a safer space for our boys to grow up in.
Dandelions and Orchids.
Hands down village life is better than town life. Wild horses wouldn’t drag us back to a town.
My family is comprised of orchids. We are not dandelion types that can take root and survive anywhere. We need the right environment to thrive. Village life has provided us with fitting conditions to bloom spectacularly.
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