dare to break the ice

we'd have never met if I didn't take a new route.

as my usual routine involved rushing– running and just about making it on time.

This day was different. I had time to walk, savour where I was. We tend to do that, rush to get to our destination, then never stop to appreciate where we are.

There were 30 minutes between me and my lecture–

My options from Denmark Hill station were:

Cut through & run from the back

2. Walk right around and see how well the campus was situated amongst the hospitals.

I appreciated the design, it made sense.

To my right was the Maudsley Hospital, which I came to learn was the first psychiatric hospital to be built and is now the largest mental health training institute in the UK.

I was a visitor, so this side of South London was new to me. It still is, because you never truly understand a place until you live in it.

On my walk, a man was sitting on the stairs, outside a building with a blue door.

The name of the building I could not see until I got closer.

I squinted until I read 'Centre for anxiety disorders and trauma.'

He looked up and waved.

The irony?

He was sat on anxieties doorstep

yet I was the anxious one?

I waved back, while I was getting used to the parts of London you don't see advertised on TV.

I'd go on to see him again,

this time it was "good morning miss, how are you?"

"Good morning, I am well, thank you, how are you?"–

He looked at the red ID that hung around my neck and understood I was a student.

After two weeks of not seeing him sat on the steps, I assumed he was done with his treatment.

right until he shocked me one afternoon.

I was leaving a 2-hour workshop on 'anxiety' and the same man appeared in front of me.

"You scared me, hello"

He held a rose. Smiled so wide and handed it to me.

"This is for me?"

"Yes, for you,

You were the only person that stopped to say good morning, thank you miss."

"you don't have to call me miss, it's Klaudia."

In that small moment, I was reminded that you can attend all the lectures in the world;

But

all it took was a

simple conversation

– to break the ice.