For the last two years I've been walking to work from Tottenham Court Road station. The final leg of the journey takes me down a little road where there's a Starbucks on the corner, and at what I now realise is the back door of that Starbucks they have a very rigorous cleaning regime that coincides with my walking past at around 845am.
Every day I walk along the pavement of Hollen Street and step into the road to avoid the very pungent bleach and water mix that collects outside the gate of that back entrance, and slowly dribbles its way to collect on the pavement outside.
Every day I sidestep that dettolly-smelling mix, and only this week have I started to wonder why I won't walk through it.
And I think I've found this reason,.
Call it my youth group background, or just my general education as a girl aware of her heritage, but I'm just not comfortable walking through disinfectant.
I have often thought over the years about the "what ifs".
What if my great grandfather Harris had not come over from Eastern Galicia and found his way to Liverpool and then Manchester. Or what if my great great grandfather on my father's side had not found his way to London. What if I had been born then rather than now?
I might not have had any choice but to walk through that disinfectant and through to my destiny.
So each morning in sleepy Soho I do have a choice
And without me being aware of it, I've been exercising that choice everyday.
Because I can
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