A Love Story in Winter

I twirled her around a few times while the soft moonlight filtered and fractured its way through the frozen branches of a row of nearby birch trees.

It was this magical moment that one simply cannot replicate in the warm and mostly snow-less climate of central Arkansas.

But I was in Russia and for me, everything — everything about that place was educational, motivational, and intoxicating.

This was one of those intoxicating moments.

I had met this smart, talented, and beautiful northern woman weeks earlier.

A few minutes earlier, we had taken some toys to an orphanage and were now walking through the snow and ice back to her home.

Now before we twirled, kissed, and hugged, I didn’t know they were sitting there.

Why would anyone be sitting on a bench in these insane arctic temperatures? It must have been -20F.

To my right, I saw eight Russian grandmothers sitting in a row not ten yards away from us. They watched us and contemplated our romantic interlude.

And then, they responded in a way I must admit I had not and would never have contemplated.

They spat on the ground in disgust.

No really.

Their spit turned to ice before it reached the frozen ground.

Again, not the reaction I would have guessed.

Now I didn’t care who saw us walking together, holding hands, and being generally happy.

I also didn’t care that they were judging us and revolted at our happiness.

But I was curious.

I asked my new Russian girlfriend why in the name of Sam Hill (or Alexander Pushkin, because she didn’t know Sam) would these grandmothers respond in such a strange way.

She said that maybe they think the worst and that she was a call girl with her foreign client.

I suppose that might have been what they saw.

But, also incorrect.

True, I was a foreigner to this oasis of snow and at least one street vendor had mistaken me for a German.

Not sure how to take that…

But why would anyone react to someone’s happiness with scorn?

Maybe if they had lived their lives in this communist-designed despair and darkness.

Maybe they had lost a young husband to the Germans, or to the communist, or to the snow.

I don’t know.

I know they weren’t happy.

In contrast, I’d never been happier.

But I didn’t understand the opposite emotions in these old women’s faces.

My girlfriend said that it was unusual for people here to show their emotions in public.

Oh. Ok.

Well, that’s a cultural norm in many societies but not where I was from.

Thanks to American TV, I’d been inundated by emotional mush all my life.

But I still didn’t understand the contempt. Didn’t they know I’d found someone whom I truly loved and enjoyed being with?

Didn’t they realize that I wasn’t going to stifle my excitement and affection for her just because the grandmothers were not pleased?

So, I did what I thought was reasonable at the time.

I walked to the grandmothers, took one of them by the weathered hand, smiled, and kissed her weathered and wrinkled forehead.

Then ran towards the birch trees and my beautiful translator, swung her around again, and said good evening to them all as the spittle flew once more but well beyond our reach.