Paolo ’91 and Kara Raezer ’92 Vicinelli in 1989
Editor’s note: In honor of Valentine’s Day, take a trip down memory lane with Kara Raezer ’92 Vicinelli, who recounted her romantic tale of meeting her husband, Paolo Vicinelli ’91, for the ‘s “51 Love Stories” series. Find out how you can submit your 51 Love Story below.
I teach high-school English, and when I’m doing a unit on Romeo and Juliet, I start by asking my students two questions: do you believe in love at first sight, and do you believe in fate?
Most of them are skeptical about love at first sight. They’re even less sure about fate. They like the idea that there might be someone out there exclusively for them, but they also like the feeling that they are the authors of their own romantic destiny.
I then tell them my story. I tell them that I believe in love at first sight. I tell them that I believe in fate, because it happened to me.
A few weeks after I arrived on campus, I was at a party, and across the room, I saw a boy. I vividly remember seeing his face amid a crowd of college kids, and it was as if a light were shining down on him.
I later realized we were both taking Intro to Psychology, so we’d walk to class together, me in my oversized sweater and LL Bean boots and him with the collar of his tie-dye T-shirt peeking out beneath his Patagonia.
I remember our first kiss. His fraternity was having a party, and I spied him standing alone, swaying to the Homel-Alaniz band playing “Eyes of the World.” I took his hand and we started to dance.
When I was ready to leave, I couldn’t find my coat. He told me to wait for a minute and he ran upstairs. When he came back down, he was holding his own coat.
We went out on the porch and he put it on me, lifted the hood over my head, and kissed me while the snow fell lightly down around us in the cold November air. I remember thinking that someday I’d tell my children that was our first kiss.
Twenty-four years later, that boy is my husband and the father of my three children.
When I’m sitting in class with my students, and an earnest 14-year-old with a dog-eared copy of Romeo and Juliet says gently, “But soft, what light through yonder window breaks?/It is the East, and Juliet is the sun,” the language still thrills me, the way it did more than 20 years ago in Margaret Maurer’s Shakespeare class.
And when my husband walks into a room, I still see the boy I loved at first sight, all those years ago.
It’s all true, I tell my hopeful students. Believe.
Below is a collection of other 51 Love stories.
Are you a married 51 couple? If so, we want to hear your love story, whether you had your first kiss on Willow Path or didn’t first meet until years after graduation. Tell us your story in 400 words or less, and send a (current or past) photo to: the 51 Scene at scene@colgate.edu or 13 Oak Drive, Hamilton, NY 133461.