Sipping a glass half-full of red wine, we started our usual Friday evening conversation on literature, life and sadness. Since both of us were well aware of each other’s fascination with sadness, we only talked on the subject. When she spoke about it I could see that she was contemplative, like a solitary hermit meditating deep in the mountains. She would sometimes gaze at a distant ship sailing across Zürich Lake, and other times, at a nearby anthill gently being destroyed by the wind. She was extremely serene and aware in her half-drunkenness. Despite feeling a bit intoxicated, or perhaps because of it, I was being absorbed by her stories and could experience pure bliss, being alive at that moment. Her stories seemed mine as much as they were hers. Thus it felt as if my mind, my soul, my ‘me’ in its entirety, were all inside hers so much that I couldn’t see any difference in the two of us, except physically. After that evening, I have known Briana as a real-life ‘phoenix’, the bird in Greek mythology; she has been able to revive herself after every tragedy and every death.

She spoke of sadness in love.

“You will never get over the feeling of being heart-broken in love. You know a part of you has been lost forever. Because when we love, we cannot avoid making our heart accessible to the other person. So when the person leaves, it hurts so badly that we feel our heart is taken away too, and think we would never be able to get it back. You can almost see the world crashing right before your eyes, and cannot decipher what’s happening. You won’t know if survival is remotely a possibility. You drown yourself in tears and empty memories and even think of committing suicide because you don’t see a point in living. A day passes, and the fact of not having the person around breaks you again. You won’t even know how you survived the first day.

“A week later, you will again be broken when you stumble upon the long love letters you wrote to one another. You think of burning every one of them. But you won’t quite get the courage to do so. Instead you choose to go through them in detail, and as a result, again inflict yourself a great deal of pain. A month later, you will be hurt again but not as much as you were on the first day. You realise you have even counted the number of days survived without having the person with you. You know it’s 34. This will give you a sense of accomplishment, but only until when you think of how the person might be doing at the other end. You will shed a tear recalling the conversations of your happy days. You realise you have caused yourself a lot of damage by being miserable all these days. So you decide that from next time, you would instead try to think something positive as soon as the thought of heart-break comes to you. You will also recognise time has healed you a little bit, and that you are stronger than you ever thought you were.

“After six months or maybe a year, it won’t hurt you any longer. Sometimes you think of the memories, but they won’t make you cry. You will smile just a bit. You won’t know how you endured this long. But you will be convinced that you have become a stronger and better person because of your past.”

So spoke Briana.

To give me a better sense of her last statement, she quoted Haruki Murakami: “And once the storm is over, you won’t remember how you made it through, how you managed to survive. You won’t even be sure, whether the storm is really over. But one thing is certain. When you come out of the storm, you won’t be the same person who walked in. That’s what this storm’s all about.”

Through her, it felt as if I could almost sense how powerful love is. It gives one the highest level of happiness possible. And yet, it is capable of dealing the deepest pain. It is in this sense a great adventure to be in love. As in every adventure, one learns and grows through love.

I was numb the entire time she took me through this journey. Sometimes words are impediments to ‘real’ conversations, and that time was such a moment. We realised we were holding empty glasses for an hour, and the ant-hill was completely destroyed by the wind. The sight was very poignant to her, as was to me.

A silence ensued.

She finally spoke, “But these little creatures won’t stop here. They will feel disheartened, if they are capable of feeling pain. But like the mythical bird Phoenix, they will pick themselves up, find another place to build anthill and start the project again with great labour.” I could comprehend her implicit message: ‘We should all be like the Phoenix.’

She then spoke to me on Zürich.

“Zürich has given me a lot. A few moments of suffering and very often, many great opportunities. Its open sky has heard my several lamentations at night. You can ask its lake about the taste of my tears, sometimes of joy and times of pain. Or the small bridge by the lake where I have spoken about what I want to accomplish in my life. Or the entire city I have sometimes cursed for being cruel to a young girl like myself. Or its trees, about the endless gratitude from me. Or its wooden park-benches, where I have rested for hours pondering the beauty of the lake, distant mountains and sky. For me, Zürich is like a living being whom I can always rely upon to commune with about my joys and suffering.

“I have learnt over time that great dreams are possible here. But as to any explorer, the place has also tested me in a myriad of ways. During difficult times, it has almost always been helpful to recall that an Einstein, a Weyl, a Joyce, a Vontobel have lived and done great works in this city. Of course, nobody can be anybody but themselves. But to get to enjoy the same lake, walk the same streets, breath the same ether as these great men did is a joy and an inspiration. The cemeteries of Joyce and Vontobel or the academic workplaces of Einstein and Weyl and many other eminent women and men rediate tremendous amounts of energy.”

Hearing Briana speak in that way, I was reminded of the many beautiful stories of Gibran. As it was with every conversation with her, this one took me to a different state of consciousness. Influenced by her, I came home aspiring to experience communing with the city, the roads, the lake, the sky in hopes of learning more about the art of being the ‘Phoenix’ in real life.