On love & week 29 of 52

in defense of watching bad movies in a cabin in the woods and loving those we care about relentlessly

The Netflix algorithm is usually wrong.

Late last week, Netflix said I’d “love” a movie so much that I’d give it not one but two thumbs up. This movie, “Hot Frosty,” is a Christmas tale about a snowman who comes to life and falls in love with a restaurant owner in a small town. The restaurant owner, a widow, begins to love him back, but she can’t ignore the fact that he is, in fact, a snowman.

He will inevitably melt.

My husband and I planned a quiet time in a cabin because he’ll travel for most of the season. We missed the traditional get-togethers this year but planned to make the most of our time before his travels. This didn’t include watching bad movies.

We had planned to change the channel after five minutes of “Hot Frosty,” but we were tired. No, we were exhausted after a relatively challenging hike (we got lost and ended up trekking down Rt 664 to try to find the path again) that concluded with a lengthy call from one of the people we were supposed to meet up with. So we settled in with our two large dogs at our sides and a healthy number of ginger snaps within arm’s reach.

The movie was horrible from the get-go. The acting was unconvincing. The story made fun of science. At one point, the doctor in this fictional town said she believed the snowman (who was “hot” because he was muscular, I guess) had once been made of snow because, despite her medical background, a Frosty coming to life was inevitable at Christmastime.

Chris and I made a bet about how the movie would end. We couldn’t go back after that (we were both wrong). We were locked in.

In the movie’s defense, love is hard to write about without being cliche. It’s easier when you add the forbidden, the unlikely, or the impossible.

When we think about love as the sheer relentlessness of dedication to and belief in the beauty of what is, rather than romance alone, we change how we see the world and those we share it with most. In a way, I needed that message.

There was a backdrop of this scene: a middle-aged couple watching a bad movie in a cabin flanked by snoring dogs and laughing about how creepy it is that a woman would want to kiss a man whose body temperature is similar to a corpse was not funny. Earlier that day, a loved one felt her internal world break apart and questioned her ability to keep going. She sobbed over the phone and apologized for her existence. I listened and supported, let her know I was here.

If only a season could heal and make people believe in themselves again. This loved one of mine is suffering greatly and, unfortunately, is far enough away that I can only reach her by phone. I’d told her how much I loved her earlier that day, and she heard me.

I believe in this woman and see the beauty in her life, even if she can’t see it. I love her relentlessly and believe she can come back from what seems, to her, an impossible situation. This is not blind optimism or a denial of reality but a hope that stems from somewhere real and grounded.

We can relentlessly love people and believe in them more than they believe in themselves. We can do this for ourselves, defying all odds to love what is, even when we disagree with what’s happening around us.

To love someone who used to be a snowman is a bad metaphor, a bad metaphor, but I have to say that sometimes this feels true—that we are loving someone who is slowly losing their sense of self. We are loving people who will one day cease to be or cease to be who they are.

We can’t save them, we can’t keep them from pain or a sense of loss, but we can hope for them and never give up that hope, even if a situation seems impossible.

Watching bad Christmas movies on an early holiday in a cabin in the woods is not a panacea, but slowing down long enough to engage with any love story—no matter how idiotic—might be worth our time here and there, if only to remind us how ridiculous life can be for some of us and, still, how much potential there is if we continue to love beyond the pain of circumstance.

I want to go on record that I would not give “Hot Frosty” a double thumbs up, nor would I recommend watching it. Life is precious, and two hours is a lot of time.

But I appreciate the time I had to decompress after a worrisome conversation with someone I will never stop loving for who she is. So many suffer around the holidays. It seems the time to double down on our ability to recognize what lies beneath and beyond the pain.

This is the time to love relentlessly.

AYTL: Where can you let love lead in difficult conversations or around people who are being difficult (even impossible)?

Writing prompt: Write about love amid something or some place that makes it feel impossible.

A holiday offering: Loving-Kindness Meditation