A pause between moments

Early at 8:30 am in the morning, I was up, packing my bags and ready to go. We hitchhiked a car from Hamburg to Leipzig from a German couple who were on their way to Leipzig as well.
A very lovable pair who tolerated my incessant whizzing and sniffing in the car, the lady even gave me her packets of tissues. Gee, how was I to know that Leipzig was even colder than Hamburg!
:: The city left me with one last surprise in the morning as small and soft snowflakes fell from the skies onto the car ::

:: There is not so much a place as silence between moments

My lovely host in Leipzig was Oswald, a German-Chinese gentleman whose family was also kind enough to host us for three wintry nights. He lived next to the forest and I was grateful for the short but much-needed getaway from the oppressive cities with their neon signs and carbon monoxide.
The intimacy with the snow-capped land makes me feel simultaneously vulnerable, exhilarated and peaceful. The beauty of such a thing is difficult to explain and perhaps only fully appreciated by the capacity of the viewer. But nonetheless, the enthusiasm to share the countryside (ok, not really a countryside per se), the forest in winter, is but a feeble attempt to recapture the beauty at that moment.

I was reborn.


Later that day, en route home, we visited the horse stable- Reintanlage Bohlitz Ehrenberg.
Children accompanied with parents stroke the manes of the horses while avid horse lovers galloped away gracefully around the snow-covered stable. The manes of the horses shone in the gleaming sunlight as they kicked their hooves in the snow.