In love, still, with Shakespeare and Tom

Parting is such sweet sorrow when you drop him off at the bus station this cold dark February morning in Maine. Its sweetness is the reminder you are not affixed to each other by children, mortgage or habit alone; its sorrow the many lost opportunities for closeness.

A pair of star-cross’d lovers is a polite way to describe your beginning. He was dating someone his mother adored, and you were dating your boyfriend’s (former) best friend. Being theoretically unavailable made flirting at the restaurant where you both worked harmless. Continuing to pour each other wine after shifts, alas, was not.

What’s in a name? That which we call a rose By any other name would smell as sweet, but when that funny Valentine from “TC” arrived in the mail your heart pounded. His last name was a mystery! For Love is a smoke and is made with the fume of sighs, and sharing cigarettes and dancing at Nectars had left no time for formal introductions.

“I would not wish any companion in the world but you, and by the way, what is your last name?” you ask, when finally you find him, breathless from running. His answer and mutual blushing complete the meet-cute.

The course of true love never did run smooth, and yours took the road from Burlington to Boston, then Portland to Cape Elizabeth. Love is like a child, That longs for everything it can come by, and your two are no exception. Weeks pass without time alone together. The frenetic pace of family is wondrous, and fleeting.

If music be the food of love, then texting is the poetry that now connects us. Your Valentine’s words are few because his phone and style are old school, but less is sometimes more.

An English major’s Valentine to her husband, written on February 14, 2010 when he left for a much-deserved ski trip out west — leaving her, the kids and the dog behind.

Cynthia Dill

About Cynthia Dill

Cynthia Dill is a civil rights attorney with the Portland firm Troubh Heisler. She has served as a state senator and representative, and she is the former Democratic nominee in Maine's 2012 U.S. Senate race. She holds a BA from the University of Vermont and a JD from Northeastern University. She is admitted in the U.S. District Courts for Maine, New Hampshire and Vermont, and the U.S. Court of Appeals for Veterans’ Claims. Dill lives in Cape Elizabeth with her husband Tom and their two children.