Click. The light on the camera flashes, and the moment is captured.

Bright white sun. Turquoise water. Penguins hidden in the background (but we’ll know they were there).

Two young women, brown hair, smiles, dressed like tourists, although we’re not quite that.

It is March 2016—late summer in South Africa—and we’re at Boulder’s Beach to see the African penguins that congregate here. I have been living in Cape Town for nearly three months. The young woman who stands next to me in the photograph is a new friend. Several weeks prior, barely knowing me, she had opened her home and offered me a place to stay while I hunted for an apartment of my own (no easy task in this city).

We became old friends quickly, as will sometimes happen if you travel, and would meet for dinner every Thursday at Plant, a vegan restaurant in the city center.

But before she was a host and a friend, she was an elephant journal writer (I was her editor).

And before she was an elephant journal writer, she was an elephant journal reader. Following my page, this friend had reached out to me before I ever came to Cape Town, offering to show me around if I ever found myself in her city.

As it turns out, I did.

Click. Sunshine. Home-cooked Italian food. Smiles.

Just last week, I sat outside a bar in Trastevere, Rome enjoying an early evening drink with another elephant journal writer who, when my wanderings brought me through Rome, also opened his home and welcomed me as an old friend.

We practiced yoga, co-worked daily, walked a lot, and ate even more.

And no, dear elephant journal readers, this is not a veiled bid for more invitations as I travel onward.

Rather, I offer these two examples to illustrate the thing I have come to love most as an elephant journal editor, writer and reader.

It’s not the mindful content—though I do appreciate that daily. It’s not the rare jewel of indie media to which we cling despite all obstacles—although that is an extraordinary thing.

It’s the community.

Staying with my colleague at her home in Oxford, and hosting another while I lived in Helsinki. Eating pasta with a writer on his terrace in Rome, and visiting penguins with another in Cape Town.

Engaging with fellow editors, writers and readers via Skype, email, Facebook and more, co-creating a virtual community more solid, more loving and more supportive than many I have found on the ground.

This nebulous web of connections, I have found that it stretches across the globe. And it is remarkable.

Working for elephant journal, I watch friendships grow between writers as they develop their craft and share their experience, all with the common mission of somehow being of benefit.

I field angry, abusive and spammy comments every day, but I also have the privilege of looking on as total strangers offer one another words of support, healing and compassion. I look on as readers and writers find common ground in stories—as humans have always done. I look on as discussions build on a foundation of respect and kindness.

I am honored to take part in that process.

I am grateful to have the opportunity to serve this community in some small way.

But most of all, I am inspired to work not in business, not in media, but in community.

I hope this may be a reminder—for readers and writers both—that this is what we are: A global community. A scattered collection of human beings trying to do something good.

May it be of benefit.

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Relephant Read:

Want to Write for elephant journal? Inspirational Quotes to Kick-Start You.

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Author: Toby Israel

Images: Courtesy of Author

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