When I was in college, I tried a yoga class at a health club by campus.  I probably only went once, but the unshaven maven who taught the class talked about using color to help you – visualizing ice blue to help ease pain, that ice blue was a healing and calming color.  I latched on to that and wouldn’t let go.  I wrote poetry about the ice blue nirvana where you could be pain free and happy.  I thought about things that were ice blue, I bought posters where the sky was that color.  To understand why I cared so much, and why some hairy yoga teacher impressed me so much with this one little thing, you probably need to know about another hairy teacher – my French teacher. 

I had a very close friendship with my French teacher, Mr. Rosenberg. I took every French class he taught for two or three semesters in a row. He was a quadriplegic, and struggling with health issues, and I was, at that point in my life very unwell, to spare you the gory details (for those of you who were there with me, sorry for reminding you of that time.  Close your eyes, think of ice blue).  The two of us spent a big chunk of time together outside of class too, and he rescued me all the time. I took the elevator with him – where if I got on alone people looked at me funny (the U of A is walking, stair climbing kind of campus and I looked fine on the outside). He gave me better grades than I deserved, I think.  We talked at length about the evil and pain we were separately going through, in a level of detail that no one else really wanted to know about, and how great it would be to feel better.  We went to lunch together – and he drove.  Riding shotgun with a quadriplegic takes trust.  And I did trust him. 

And then one day as I was waiting for Economics class, I saw in the Daily Wildcat that he had killed himself.  Just like that.  No more Mr. Rosenberg.  There was no memorial, and I struggled for a long time with how to deal with my feelings for him. I felt angry and hurt and betrayed and regretful.  Quadriplegics don’t just kill themselves – they have to plan it.  He must have thought about it for a long time and he didn't tell me, and I didn’t know.

Today, I had a headache, and I had two bottles in my purse, Tylenol, and Advil liquigels.  And for some reason, I have always really liked the liquigels.  And it hit me.  They are blue.  Ice blue melting into my body and carrying peace to my cranky little cells.  Mr. Rosenberg.  Choosing his ice blue nirvana.  I haven’t thought of him in a long time, and my first feeling was pure joy for what he gave me at a time I really needed him.  I guess thinking of ice blue really does work, when you give it enough time.  Ohm, Mr. Rosenberg.