Noticing a Stranger in Need
For years, I walked the streets of London wearing noise-cancelling headphones, immersed in playlists, political podcasts, or lengthy voice notes from friends, completely detached from my surroundings. One damp January evening last year, while walking home from my parents' house with my headphones dead in my bag, I spotted a small figure slumped on the pavement with her eyes closed. Had I been absorbed in my usual audio, I might not have noticed her.
I asked for her name.
“Can you hear me?”I repeated several times, my voice tightening. She did not respond and, more alarmingly, she appeared not to be breathing. My mind raced back to the single first aid class I had taken at school, but drawing a blank and fearing I might make a mistake, I dialled 999 and frantically tried to detect a pulse.
The call handler guided me through the necessary steps: to lay her down and perform chest compressions in rhythm with a count, continuing until help arrived. The stranger eventually took a breath, and I heard sirens approaching. When the paramedics arrived and she was able to say her name, I knew it was time to leave. Adrenaline pumping, I rushed to the station and accidentally boarded the wrong train.
A Decision to Be More Present
After that night, I resolved to become more aware of my environment. Wearing headphones had felt like being enveloped in sound—comforting, yet it dulled and distanced me from the world. So, I stopped wearing them.
My initial fear of boredom quickly seemed unfounded. There was always something happening during any journey—hedges buzzing with bees, fragments of conversations between friends about recent dates, preachers shouting about saving souls—and I was finally listening.
I no longer muted the city's chaos. An afternoon reading in the sun was disrupted by a teenager circling my local park on a stolen Lime bike with the alarm blaring. When a toilet door creaked incessantly on a train journey home from the office, I was the one who got up to close it because no one else noticed. Stuck in a post office queue for half an hour without distractions, I found myself cursing and glaring at someone playing videos loudly on their phone—to no avail.
Discovering What I Had Been Missing
But there was so much I had been missing. I noticed a little boy hawking his painted pebbles from a seaside hut in Essex with the flair of a 19th-century market trader.
I felt as if I had stumbled upon a secret world when a banshee-like screech in the grass turned out to be a hedgehog in a scuffle with a blackbird—the latter seemed to win.
It is remarkable how many people I hear singing in the park, such as a woman whispering hymns to her Pomeranians.
In spring, a thunderous crack alerted me to a woodpecker drilling holes in a tree during a lunchtime walk in my local park. I returned one day to see it feeding its young, their beaks poking out of the trunk. After reading Jenny Odell’s account of birdwatching in How to Do Nothing, I even began learning bird calls. I can now distinguish a robin’s song or a jay’s croak amid a cacophony of squalling parakeets.
Engaging More with People
Additionally, I am more open to conversing with people in public than before. It is easier to start a conversation when my initial response is not “What?” as I remove my headphones. That said, this also makes me a frequent target for tourists asking for directions. Their faces often fall when I type their destination into Google Maps, which they already have open.
Balancing Awareness and Personal Space
Still, I appreciate having the option to tune out. I refuse to go for a run without Cuban music blasting in my ears to keep pace with the beat. I will not board an aeroplane without first downloading an audiobook. However, these are now conscious choices rather than crutches.
Reflection on That January Night
As for that January night, I will never know what became of the stranger, but I am grateful that I was paying attention.
