SPOTLIGHT: Mountains by Cristina Vane [ESSAY]

EDITOR’S NOTE: Cristina Vane is No Depression’s Spotlight artist for February 2025. Read more about her and her new album, Hear My Call, out Feb. 21, in this feature and check out this ND exclusive video.

Mountains are the buckling points of the earth’s tension, a visual and visceral release of tectonic pressure. A gift that is violently forged, not freely given—a haven and a heaven.

Mountains were with me before I could name them. They towered over the foothill town where I was born, darning the skies. My parents had friends with a cabin, and so my siblings and I were stuffed into tiny snowsuits and brought up to the Alps. I remember white kitchen tiles, hot milk, and the sparkling snow, and being fascinated by the icicles that hung like string lights from the balconies, dripping in the morning sun. Though we grew older and moved away from Turin, we came back to the mountains every year. I was on skis once I had a first inkling of coordination, impatiently enduring the woolen underclothes and sunscreen applications so I could go with my brother to ski school. We saw the older children learning to race. Our family friend’s daughter, a slalom champion, may as well have been made of stars. Always a competitive monster, I cried at the end of the week when my naturally gifted brother Stefano won a medal and I didn’t. I have the photo of a leathered-skinned instructor holding back his laughter, trying to comfort me as I stand glowering, six years old with a ski mask tan and whole lot of feelings already.