Separation as connection

As hoards of UK property professionals - myself included - descend upon Leeds for a property festival known as UKREIFF, I’m struck by how separation brings people together.

I’m staying in a student block in Headingley. At night I hear my neighbour speaking on the phone to his girlfriend in their mother tongue (I guess the girlfriend from his tone). I look around my room and think of all the student residents away from home,  finding connection in the space that separation gifts them.

The sign below promises some nostalgia but the shop is closed. 

As I look up from taking the photo an elderly Indian woman limps past, slowly. Her dark wood walking stick is gigantic, as if it refused to be separated from the tree. I wonder how much easier she could walk without it. But she clings tightly.

“Good morning to you auntie” I say with a slight head wobble, in case she misses my ancestors. “Thank you” she beams.

I find a cafe.

“How are you?” Asks the Turkish lady who runs it.

“Good I believe - but still waking up, which is why I’m here.”

“You’ve come to the right place, and it’s definitely time.”  I see the gift in that.

I order Menemen. “With sourdough or simit?” She asks.

“How would you have it?”

“Always with simit” she replies.

“Then I will too” I say, and she pauses. Then: “thank you for asking”. Gift returned.

Later today I’ll venture back into central Leeds, where I’ll connect with some people I know well and others who I don’t, but who have been kind enough to invite me to their gatherings.

So I too will be navigating connection, and seeing what might fall into the empty spaces that new relationships offer.