Humans logo

Poem in a Pear Tree

12 days of Christmas

By robert rowePublished 3 years ago 4 min read
Like

This is a true story based on memory, but aren't they all when you really think about it? Recall never seems to have any falsehoods for the re-caller in my experiences. Beauty is in the eye of the beholder and truth is in the mind of and brain of the experiencer in my foggy estimation. I digress.

I met her on a Wednesday. It was just a picture and instead of being worth a thousand words; only one came to mind. These days the memory of romance had almost completely dissolved from my grey matter, but this visual stimulus had awoken my long slumbering reveries of a true sleeping beauty. Shaking with anticipation I reached out to her via the message function on the website Zoosk. I would like to remember how fluid and confident my first contact was but in reality it was probably quite the opposite.

I believe I quoted an ABBA song from my childhood after asking her to meet up and it actually worked! The celebration was short lived as I now had to actually go on a date with her. I wanted to make it special but in reality it was just a meet and greet dinner. She lived 45 miles away and in California traffic that translated into a two hour drive. The entire drive my optimism and romance kept being challenged by my subconscious belief of I can't date a girl who lives this far away. Beliefs are very engrained from an early age and most are very challenging to dispel or get rid of. I am still reading many books on how to reprogram one's subconscious to alter age old tendencies that have hindered us since childhood. Oddly enough this belief disappeared as soon as I walked into the restaurant. Our second date I was an hour early and waited for her in the park until she was finished working. My days off were soon spent in constant anticipation and constant traffic without really noticing any traffic on the 405. Romance is a strange thing to me. The more romantic you are the more is expected and that leads to quite the conundrum. I was constantly pushing the envelope to surprise and outdo the last romantic gesture. She was that special.

Our second Christmas together was coming up and I wanted to make it unforgettable. Being almost 50 I had finally met the true love of my life and I was racking my brain; What do you get your true love for Christmas? The questions you ask your mind soon get answered. So after many years of learning this the hard way I have finally learned how to always ask proactive positive questions and not questions of doubt and lack. What to get your true love for Christmas? Hmmmm. I tend to think in songs so of course my next thought came, on the 12th day of Christmas my true love gave to me. A gift a day for 12 days didn't seem like a very good idea to my brain; too much time and effort and how will I ever top this idea next Christmas? My thoughts quickly turned to the smile I would see twelve times and the first gift popped into my head. Dang it! I guess we are doing this. What an amazing 12 days. December 13th: 12 charcoal briquets (my prank side couldn't be romanticized away) The reaction was what you would expect. Not good. December 14th: 11 mallomars her favorite childhood cookie, much better reaction. All the gifts had special cards with them and it was fun just trying to come up with different ideas each time. You get the idea and I have been married with my true love for six years now and we have both lost our moms in that time and had numerous challenges on the life front. I have definitely learned love is not enough to keep a marriage together. It takes work and compassion, communication and shared vision. I have since forgotten most of those gifts but the thought and love that went into each one has grown. The last gift of course should have been a partridge in a pear tree but what she really got was a poem in a pear tree, because I had no earthly idea how to buy, let alone take care of a partridge! I think she still has the poem, but sadly the pear tree perished a year after being planted; and through it all we still have each other which is the greatest gift of them all of course. The word that came to mind so many years ago was and continues to be STUNNING, and the ABBA song quote was "Take a chance on me" and I'm the luckiest guy in the world because she did just that, and continues to do so....

literature
Like

About the Creator

robert rowe

Starting again...anything is possible in my imagination......stay tuned

Reader insights

Be the first to share your insights about this piece.

How does it work?

Add your insights

Comments

There are no comments for this story

Be the first to respond and start the conversation.

Sign in to comment

    Find us on social media

    Miscellaneous links

    • Explore
    • Contact
    • Privacy Policy
    • Terms of Use
    • Support

    © 2024 Creatd, Inc. All Rights Reserved.