I used to like this date. It’s one day after my mom’s birthday and also the birthday of one of my best friends. We used to sit at the same desk in high school. She is an unquenchable optimist. I bet our “high school gang” is going to meet at her place today – at least those who are in the city. Well, I am thousands of miles away, too bad for me… Luckily I have friends here too, who can help me coping with the 24^th of February.

I woke up this morning to bright sunshine and blue sky, with the happiness from yesterday still lingering on, especially as I folded up my precious new sari (oh, I felt like a princess wearing it, and I was treated like one – to receive such a present…) Yet, gradually the shadow of the past gets a grip of me. It happened three years ago, on a sunny day, just like today.

We were on a ski-mountaineering trip in Switzerland – a group of German friends (half of them mountain guides) and me. It was the last day: the last trip to the top of the mountain called Wengahon. The whole group was already on the top, waiting for me and my friend, who hanged back to be by my side – I am a very slow walker. Some 100 more meters and we’ll join them. Seeing us approaching and getting cold in the wind on the top, some of them decide not to wait any longer and start the last wonderful thrilling decent down the North-West slope. Being more to the South, I can’t see them over the “shoulder” of the mountain. First we have to get to the top and then follow them…

“Lavine!!!” – and we freeze where we are. Avalanche?!? Where? How comes? Impossible! There is no avalanche danger according to all forecasts. And we’ve got some experts on the team who know what they’re doing. And it is such a sunny day, amazing sunny day with a beautiful blue skies and gorgeous mountains all around us. It just cannot be! Or at least, it cannot be that bad… Well, it was bad. It was as bad as it could get. One of us never saw the sky again.

No, I haven’t seen the actual avalanche, nor the body of Bernd – only the closed coffin later on. But I’ve seen the faces of my friends. Sabine – his girlfriend – she was swept away by the cursed avalanche as well, but she was on the surface when the snow stopped. I’ve seen her face… He was taken to the hospital by a helicopter with a false hope for a miracle. After a day, when it was clear that the brain is dead, Sabine and Bernd’s parents had to tell the doctors to “switch him off.” His heart was beating, but that was all… Technically he died on 25^th. He was 30 years old.

Honestly, I didn’t really know him that well. I barely remember his face. It’s Sabine’s face that haunts me once a year, on 24^th of February. It’s the though of how fragile human life is. How suddenly and tragically it can come to an end. Someone you love is gone… Forever… Beyond any reach…

My second intersession at IUB I spent in a way that was very different from the first one, with one exception (well, two exceptions, but I won't tell you about the second one :-P) - I spent quite a lot of time in the library. It seems to work some sort of a strange winter magic on me. The silence, the huge glass wall, the bookshelves packed with wisdom, challenge, images of faraway lands and, occasionally, few books that I know and treasure,  the pale sky outside, the bare black branches of trees, the day slowly growing dim and the sunset and the dusk, the yellow lights springing up on campus, sometimes even snow - cautious and timid Bremen snow, circling in the air... There is so much space both for studying and daydreaming in winter library, strange as this blend may sound. Speaking about strange blends: there was this song by "Seal" - Kiss from a Rose - I've been listening often recently. You know, sometimes once particular song becomes your favorite and kind of sticks in your head. On the other hand, when I am getting tired of political science I switch to poems by Federico Garcia Lorca. I wish I could read him in Spanish. 

And here it comes, out of blue (hmm, in this case out of grey, that's just the color that fits this season, and one of my favorite colors btw.) - a poem, that is a pure plagiarism on "Seal" and influenced by Lorka's style. If you want to ruin my academic career you can report me :-D

 

What happens when you fall in love...

Oh, did you know

That the world has changed its shades and songs

And when it snows

My eyes are larger, and I see

The light you shine...