Little Song #2

I walked by the Christmas tree in my lobby and stopped dead in my tracks. That scent. I knew that fragrance. Why hadn’t I noticed it before? That tree’s been there for a week. The smell went through my nose, into my head, and I closed my eyes. One moment I was on my way to the gym, and then, in the course of a second, I was back in my house in Virginia with Cindy and it was December 2002.

One night, on my way home from work in 2002, I decided to purchase a real live Christmas tree. Although Cindy said that we had a perfectly good fake one somewhere up in the attic (left there by the previous owners), I wanted a real tree. Cindy assumed that it was because I never had a real one growing up. But really, there seemed something prestigious to me about having a real tree. In my mind at least, procuring the tree, strapping it to your car, working tirelessly to prevent a sap seal, and setting it up in the home that you share with the person you love was a rite of passage.

You can’t tell this from the picture above, but we only had enough ornaments for the front of the tree. Cindy and I were not the type of people to buy ornaments randomly just for the sake of having lots of decoration. Therefore, for the first year, our tree was sparse. I didn’t mind this so much because I recognized that we were still a young couple and had decades more of Christmases together. In fact, I looked forward to the later years when we would have amassed hundreds of ornaments from our travels and our friends--each ornament telling a different story of our life together.

That evening, while we trimmed the tree, I suggested a Christmas gift alternative. Rather than spend lots of money on gifts for each other, I suggested that we do something creative for the other person. I loved this idea because I had fun thinking up unexpected, imaginative gifts for Cindy. One such gift that I am really proud of is visible in the photo above. In the top right corner, hanging on the wall, is a black and white portrait of us. That picture is actually made up of more than 1,000 tiny square Lego pieces (a gift that I had given her for our first Valentine’s Day together).

I had no idea what Cindy would come up with for me. Since she was a camera person, would she do something with photography? Would she play a song on a piano for me? Would she get me my favorite celebrity’s autograph? Even though I was 28 years old at the time, I acted like an 8-year old anxiously awaiting Santa’s arrival.

When she finally handed me her gift Christmas morning, it felt heavy. Could it be a book? A picture frame? I unwrapped the gift and took out the chocolates that she had used to weigh down the box. Underneath the box of chocolates, on purple card stock, was a handwritten poem titled “Little Song #2.”

As I stared at this most amazing gift, Cindy explained that it was only fitting that her Italian girlfriend should have an Italian sonnet written for her. When I asked about the title of the poem, she reminded me that the term sonnet means “little song.” I can’t recall why she titled it #2, but, knowing a perfectionist like Cindy, it was probably because she edited Little Song #1 to death.

As I read the poem, I could not believe how well Cindy adhered to the structure. Italian sonnets are typically 14 lines with a rhyme scheme like this: a-b-b-a, a-b-b-a, c-d-e-c-d-e. The first part of the poem describes the problem the poet is facing and then the second part offers some sort of resolution to the tale. What makes this gift so extraordinary was that Cindy was not a huge aficionado of poetry. She decided to do something way outside her comfort zone because she knew that it would be completely appreciated by an English major like me.

I debated whether to share with you something as cheesy as a poem. What seems romantic to us in our personal lives does not always translate the same way to the outside world. Nonetheless, here’s the poem:

Little Song #2
When I thought true love was so far from me,
into my life one summer day came you
Beautiful, charming, smart with eyes of blue
In front of me, was what was meant to be
Life with you is all I could ever see
Would you be the one? Could it become true?
My heart, my desires would be for you
Since that day, I thought of you endlessly.

We are now one. How fortunate our fate
For here we are together everyday
No more nights without you or days apart
With you I have found my friend and soulmate
I am happy when in your arms I lay;
I am complete because I have your heart

--CMR 12/2002

I always thought that if we ever had an official wedding ceremony and Cindy was stressing about what to say for her vows, that she could just recite the poem she had written for me in December 2002.

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P.S. In order to take the photograph shown above, Cindy used a tripod and, after eight tries (keeping the cat still was a feat in itself), eventually captured this shot. We used this photograph as the basis for a holiday e-card. I thought it would be funny that our family portrait consisted of me, Cindy, our cat Mr. Kitty, and my beloved animatronic reindeer that I kept inside the house. On no account did I ever doubt that Cindy was my soulmate for she never questioned my desire to keep the animatronic reindeer in our house. After all, if they were outside the house, how could I enjoy the site of them in their neat red bows, moving their heads left and right?