It Started with Snow

On parallels, nostalgia, and seeing more clearly

Snow on the Appennini. Photo mine.

Cari amici,

As you can see by the photo above, winter has arrived in central Italy. Though the long-ranging views from my hilltop town always deliver balm for the soul, seeing those mountains painted white makes me wistful somehow. Nostalgic too, as those of us in the West have been culturally conditioned to feel.

I didn’t grow up with snow, have never lived anywhere, except for Chicago, that brought much of it. For big-city dwellers, blanketing snow is fun for mere hours; after that, it’s inconvenient and all too soon a mess of icy gray sludge. For cities, you need flurries and dustings, a romantic kind of snowfall. Knee-deep snow brings a different kind of romantic imagery—fields and valleys and mountains that conjure horses and sleighs, journeys through familiar terrain made delightfully foreign. Those whitened slopes in my photo are just the place to take one of my sons, the one who’s infatuated with Iceland and who is coming here for Christmas. We’ll drive toward that snow, as far as we can without tire chains, and admire nature’s seasonal gift.

Nostalgia. It's obvious why snow provokes it, for me and probably some of you—it’s a parallel to Christmas, which in its non-religious aspect symbolizes childhood, family, anticipation, delight. All emotion-tugging and romantic intangibles, yes; nostalgia prefers not to remember the bleak times. My nostalgia is fed, too, by another parallel—snow makes me think of Rosemary, Bing, Danny, and Vera Ellen crooning in a dining car while en route to Vermont by train. For years, I wouldn’t let the holidays pass without watching White Christmas. I haven’t seen it in a while, though, so it’s time. I think I’ll strong-arm my son into watching it too.

In case all this talk of nostalgia and romantic snowfalls hasn’t tipped you off, for the past few weeks I’ve been in a simultaneously escapist and introspective mood, one that sent me into full-on hermit mode. Sometimes that’s a good thing, because it means I write a lot. This time I had neither the inclination nor the capacity to write, but instead of beating myself up about it (as I tend to do), I made not writing a deliberate choice. Not-writing-as-therapy, if you will. When I do that, I often indulge in binge-watching TV shows (usually ones for which I’m very late to the party), and this time was no different. My “therapy” of choice? House of Cards. I know, I know.

I got about three episodes in when I decided I couldn’t watch the show anymore because it was depressing the hell out of me. I quit for a day, maybe two, but then I went back to it because I wanted to understand these evil people. I love binge-watching a long, well-written series because it allows me to study character and story development (and to admire writers who can plot in detail over a very long arc). In the beginning, though curious, I had no idea how truly evil the Underwoods were (kudos to whoever gave them that name, which connotes the rot under a fallen log), and the deeper into the show I got, the more I wanted to know what made them tick. Unfortunately, the series didn’t explain much, beyond some half-hearted attempts in the last season to “justify” Claire’s deep-seated need for power, revenge, and god knows what else. For me, the most fascinating character was Doug, a flawed man whose flashes of humanity made him more richly complex than the Underwoods. I really wanted some insight into Doug’s irrational and self-destructive devotion to Francis, but the show failed to deliver there too.

Why am I telling you all this about a show you might not have seen? Because the odd thing is, as disgusting and depressing as the show’s parallels to real-life politics are, wallowing in six seasons’ worth of filthy narcissism and greed, depravity and moral bankruptcy—well, it made me feel better. It made me grateful for all the good, kind, generous people in the world who fight against House of Cards–type shit and its fallout every day.

I thought about all this the other day when I stopped at a traffic light not far from home, where most days one of two men tries to make a living in consecutive two-minute sprints (or however long a red light lasts). Moving from car to car, one man offers to clean windshields; the other offers bundle-packs of fazoletti (tissues) at a fifty-percent markup. I appreciate their entrepreneurship and their endurance, facing smoldering heat, whipping winds, plummeting temperatures, and, more often than not, one brusquely shaken head or dismissive wave of a hand after another. That day I said yes to a clean windshield, paid the man more than he probably expected, and resolved to give him more next time. Same goes for the tissues seller. I will buy more packs than I need; better yet, sometimes I’ll “forget” to take the pack. I say “forget” because there’s a delicate line between need and dignity, and if these men choose to provide a service rather than simply ask for a handout, who am I to deprive them of their right to make that choice?

It’s this kind of exchange—a windshield, already clean enough, washed anyway, an excess of tissues stockpiled—that makes me more inclined toward generosity, and I think it’s because these men are showing us who they are. They’re men with pride, who admit to need but won’t grovel and beg, who are engaging with us. I respect them for that and accept their terms. That’s why I’ll give freely to those who busk, or to the silent sitters with their cups for coins and a sign asking for help. They too have dignity, unlike the clown-costumed beggars who roam Perugia’s centro storico, often parading up and down Corso Vannucci looking for easy marks. And though you could argue that I should put the men who sell roses in the same category as the windshield cleaner and tissue seller, I don’t. The rose sellers don’t offer or ask; they interrupt your conversations on the street, hold you captive at your restaurant table, refuse to leave until you’ve said no at least three times. Say yes once and they’ll remember you, double down the next time they see you. To them I give nothing. Is that unkind? Maybe. But I’d rather give more to the windshield washers and tissue sellers and buskers and silent sitters who don’t use aggression to ask for help.

There’s too much aggression out there in the immediate and distant world, along with cruelty and evil and other sad realities that you can name as well as I can. I choose not to write about what’s dominating the headlines, but don’t take my silence for apathy. Sometimes the nonstop atrocities in the real world numb me or send me diving under the covers. Yet in the nurturing arms of art—even when that art is a TV show that fails to dig deeply into its characters—I can look at those realities, hear them, think about them. Even come to terms with how I fit into the world alongside them.

I’ve been roused from my desire to shut out the world by art, and by the silent beauty of snow, and by the breathless sense of insignificance a magnificent panorama can provoke. I’ll pay more attention to the man waiting patiently at a red light, squeegee and spritzer bottle in hand. In the context of forces greater than myself, I can see him more clearly now, this quiet, dignified man trying to survive.

Tante belle cose. Alla prossima—

Cheryl

© 2023 Cheryl A. Ossola

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Link of the week:

I follow Elle Cordova on Instagram, and she usually makes me laugh. This post (best linked to on your phone), in which she shares a thought exercise for combatting those days when it seems impossible to get out of bed or off the couch, is just what all of us need at one time or another.

P.S. My book! Which you can buy here or on the usual sites, or, better yet, order if from you local bookstore. Another fab option is to ask your library to stock it. If you read it and like it, please tell your friends and/or leave a few lines of praise on any bookish site. You’d be surprised how much a rating or review helps authors. Baci!