I have often talked and written about my Italian grandmother Francesca. She was so much a part of my childhood and was the quintessential Nona; flowered house dress, sensible black oxford shoes, and her hair done up in a bun at the back of her head. She always smelled clean and her ways of expressing herself had a calmness that seemed to permeate the atmosphere.
She kept her weight down by eating moderately and by taking a brief stroll every day around the neighborhood. She wore no makeup and rarely spent a lot of time worrying about what she looked like. She existed primarily for her family, making delicious meals and spending time praying for individuals who needed spiritual help. I’m sure there are still a percentage of these types of grandmothers somewhere here in America and abroad, but they are fast becoming a part of the past.
Today’s Nona’s are much more hip looking and involved in all kinds of activities. Many of them also work full-time. I know because I’m one of those working grandmas. I often wonder if my grandmother was better off even though she had to deal with fewer modern conveniences and communicating with family and friends was either an old-fashioned telephone or a letter? I know that she never discussed how stressed she was. Life was pretty simple aside from occasional bouts with dysfunctional family members, which in retrospect I believe brought drama to her life and made her feel perky. She didn’t have to wake up and worry whether her highlights or her haircut was going to work. Hair products were a non issue. A bar of brown soap was used for everything including washing her hair. Olive oil was the conditioner as well as a salad dressing.
No push up bras or thongs. I’m sure she would have laughed at the thought of pushing up her breasts. I can just see her face looking at a thong and exclaiming ”What happened to the rest of the underpants.?” She had no need to buy sexy nightgowns to entice my grandfather. I think her night wear was probably woven with steel thread so that removing it would be a major feat. In fact I would bet she had very little information about sex and perhaps was under the illusion that her children were miracles, since she would have had to shield herself from sinful thoughts. I loved the fact that I never heard her talk about dieting. She seemed to have an innate understanding of what well-being meant and knew that being over-weight was not where it was at. Perhaps our relentless need to do more and be more should be tempered by a little bit of old-fashioned Nona mentality. We just might live longer.
My grandmother had thongs when she was a girl. She also had no indoor plumbing, so she thought more about a cold wooden seat on her bum in the winter than tight little undies.
Grandma never thought much about dieting back then either. You only had enough food in the house that would fit in a little ice box or else it would spoil, so the concept of going to the freezer at 2 AM to pig out on Ben & Jerry’s was unknown to her.
And should she go out for the day in her sensible black oxford shoes, she probably spent the evening cleaning them of horse pooh.
There was an episode of the Andy Griffith Show where Andy was musing to Aunt Bea about how he missed the times as a boy when the ice man would come by in the summer and give him a piece of ice to suck on and Aunt Bea just sighed and said, “Yes, I miss diptheria too?”
“For the majority of us, the past is a regret, the future an experiment.” – Mark Twain