Eight to infinity and beyond
We sat next to each other in Philosophy class. The first day, I hadn’t planned to sit next to him. He waved me over to where he sat. Wartburg doesn’t have many classes that meet in an auditorium, so a friendly face in the crowd was good to have. Sitting next to the man that would become my soul mate? That became a habit that worked well — and probably helped the relationship grow.
We sat in the same seats all semester. Left side of the left aisle. About halfway between the stage and the doors. For a while we meet at our seats. As the weeks went on, we would meet earlier and earlier to walk and talk. We chatted before lecture every day. Made our usual pithy comments while the prof talked on and on. Walked out of the auditorium after each class. Even studied together.
That first day, he forgot to bring a pen. I had several in my purse, so I gave him one. (He did have a notebook, which was a step in the right direction.) It was to become a lifelong habit. Seldom does it happen that we both have pens at the same time.
Both of us knew just enough philosophy to be dangerous. We learned about each other as we learned the history of philosophy. For him, the class was a filler credit. For me, it was a part of my expected program.
Within a couple of weeks, we were seeing each other often. I hadn’t really expected it to happen… after all, who expects to fall for a guy who can’t even polka? By the middle of the month we were dating. By Halloween we were talking about what would happen when he graduated at the end of the semester. By Thanksgiving, we were engaged.
Sometime in late September, the professor lectured about the Pythagoreans. They believed that anything in this world could be described by a series of whole numbers. The prof went through the whole list. I took notes and doodled. He doodled. When the prof got to eight, we looked at each other sappily. They believed that eight meant love. We could both see that being a good thing.
He doodled eights in various directions. Then, he drew the notation that became part of our lives:
Sappy, I know. But together in love unto infinity sounded very good to us both. We started signing notes to each other that way. He would leave it as a note on my white board. As we got closer, the little diagram became more important every day.
During the long distance phase of our relationship, we wrote each other every day. Every postcard, letter, greeting card was signed with that same design. I would have gotten it engraved on his wedding band, but the engraver couldn’t figure out a way to do the infinity sign.
Years became a decade. Still together, still using the same little mark. We go to see Toy Story when it comes out. Almost freaked when Buzz first said “To Infinity and Beyond”. Our little design went through a change and became:
35 years later, we still sign cards and notes to each other that way. We’ve been known to text it… That’s not easy, by the way. There isn’t an infinity sign on a keyboard so we use words instead of the drawn signature.
For Mother’s Day, he surprised me with one of the most perfect gifts he has ever given me: An infinity pendant. He saw it one day when he was downtown. He knew it would be the perfect gift. It wasn’t expensive, but it is perfect.
I hope to keep signing cards and notes for him this way for another 10 or 20 decades.
