first time (iii)

june 16, 1990. a day to remember.

summertime in germany; me, my brothers, and maybe a few other people were in the backyard, a good two weeks after the harpstedt weekend. it was a saturday afternoon. on sunday, the pathfinders would meet at home. at my place. with jana.

it had been exactly eleven weeks since i had left a little note in her jacket, saying “ich hab dich gern” (i “like you” like you), and signed by “irgendwer” (someone). i was in the best of moods. my mother calls. “telephone, raphael”. yes, the raphael from an earlier series. i went inside and picked up the phone downstairs, when i hear something quite unexpected on the other side of the line. “hello, here is jana.” silence. and even before i could think of the magnitude of the fact that jana was calling me, again, she had hung up – after a quick “ich hab dich auch gern”.

it almost made me feel dizzy. my wildest hopes, dreams, interpretations, observations. they were confirmed by one simple and direct sentence. for the first time in my life, someone i liked had openly declared that they liked me. it was kind of understood with michaela in 1986, but confirmation only came decades later. here it seemed quite clear. it was to be understood that what i felt for her, she had started to feel for me. she used the exact same words. there was no doubt about the interpretation.

i was so excited that i didn’t even stop to think about why she might have called me to say that, or why my mother was under the impression that raphael was on the phone. i just ceased the moment and the day. june 16 became a historical date for me.

june 17, next post.