Jaye Marie and Anita Dawes

Nine Deadly Sins with Coffee (20) – The Anxious Heart

We were sitting by the river, though earlier than usual. The padded plastic-bottomed picnic blanket I had brought serving us well as a coffee base on the cold limestone, which was constantly made wet by the spray from the rapids in the adjacent river Kent. Neither of us seemed to mind the gentle mist. The thermos flask had been half emptied and we were enjoying our coffee.  We talked, gently. To anyone passing over the nearby bridge, we would have looked a strange pair – Alexandra in her legal suit, albeit it with walking boots; and me in jeans and summer teeshirt.

The mood was gentle. Fear, the central characteristic of station six on the enneagram of personality, was not a topic to which we needed to add much drama: it had enough of its own.

“We are all afraid,” I…