The darkness around us seems to deny the hour; it is 7 in the morning. The train station is full of sleepy and quiet people who suddenly wake up from the bursts of icy wind that hits our faces. It is January and I am going to Berlin.
January is a cold month, with gray skies, the sun rises late and goes to sleep before 4:00 pm. After the lights that illuminate the streets in December, January seems rather lonely and dark. However, it is the first month of the year and because of this, it is full of hope, resuscitates desires, and awakes in us new energy for our new goals.
I stand on the platform ready to board the train and look up, trying to find a star, but the clouds conceal them and the only one capable of frightening them all perhaps because of its proximity to the earth is the full moon. Today I arrived on time to the train, because German trains do not wait and almost never delay. When I had barely arrived on this side of the world, I learned my lesson the hard way when the doors were closed several times in my nose and I had to be late for school because of my 30-seconds delay. The truth is that because of that I greatly admire the organization and punctuality of public transportation in these parts of the planet.
When it clears up, the train is in the middle of a gray forest that seems dead, but is actually asleep. I am about to enter the city and see how the trees in their limits show their skeletons naked, waiting for the spring sun to come back. Rains, frost and sad snow keeps some of the meadows with a faint green. I observe the thin branches of the weeping willows, they seem so fragile, delicate and I do not understand how they support the cold that freezes my bones. But not everything that seems fragile it is, and not everything that seems dead it is. The inner strength of these trees is patient, quiet and awaits with certanty for the light to return, then the rebirth of their leafs give us fresh air again. I am glad to think that in a few months I will see them again with the bright and crispy green that can only be enjoy in spring. Then I will go back to the forest and run.
The trips on the Berlin’s trains are full of silence. Nobody greets, nobody speaks on the phone or their neighbor passenger, music is loud only in head phones. Quiet citizens try to respect the stillness and silence of the others. The silence of the train gives us time to think, remember, plan or read. I fill my trips on the train with words, books, notebooks with my scribbles, reflections or blogs, like this one.
Today we will see the sun. Although I do not see its radiance from my seat, I see how it announces its arrival and colors my sky with a shining beauty. The magnificent violet and pink separates the clouds and seems to announce the magic of the day or maybe the new year. Then slowly, it is born in the sky bright and powerful, like always to warm up our winter.
This star in January always makes me smile.
“From the rising of the sun, to the place where it sets, the name of the Lord be praised” Ps 113: 3
