It is easy to engage in surroundings when vacationing:  all travellers belong,
having escaped (even if momentarily) their scripted lives.

We project friendliness onto strangers – mothers meeting outside our day-to-day – have new things to discuss.  Dare to confess concerns, or approach the personal, and the shunning is immediate.  Only peripheral conversations are expected here.

No problem; we move on.  Return to our inner security, and focus our search on the next landing place.

We will reach out again when landed, the challenge always how much to extend, and remembering to stay out of the emotional.

Is this why some return to the same place, year after year – the yearning for deeper connection and community preferable to the superficial?