At some point in the last several years, my enchantment with Paris was supplanted by a fascination with Scandinavia. Paris will always be Paris, of course, but these cold, cozy countries to the north captured my imagination in a new way. How could a place so cloaked in long winter darkness be home to the happiest people on earth? The part of me that can’t stop thinking about how where we live affects how we live couldn’t get Scandinavia out of my mind.
The day I stumbled across Alex‘s blog, Hygge House, was like finding a door in the back of a wardrobe that leads to an enchanted country whose language has a single word that encapsulates so much of what I care about:
The Danish word hygge (hue-gah) is a feeling or mood that comes from taking genuine pleasure in making ordinary everyday things simply extraordinary; whether it’s using real lights on a Christmas tree or breaking out the good wine when friends come over.
It’s about owning things you only truly love or that inspire, being present in yourself and your life, putting effort into your home without being Martha Stewart or buying a bed in a bag. It’s also about being conscious and authentic from home to work to friends to celebrations and making all events {no matter how big or small, mundane or exciting} matter.
Words like cosiness, security, familiarity, comfort, reassurance, fellowship, simpleness and living well are often used to describe the idea of Hygge. Some refer to Hygge as the Art of Creating Intimacy (with yourself, friends and home). Technology and modern day busy-ness has removed so many of us from ourselves, our homes and ordinary tasks, making them feel as though these things are hard to do, have no importance or are too time-consuming.
Danes, however, only like to do things that are fun, nourish the soul and are familiar so they find ways to incorporate them into their daily life. By creating simple rituals without effort {such as brewing real tea with a little china cup every evening to stopping at the farmers market every week to buy flowers} the Danes see both the domestic and personal life as an art form and not every drudgery to get away from.
When I found the complete set of the Time-Life Food Series in an Upper East Side church basement, I fell in love with the volume on the Cooking of Scandinavia. The author tells the story of exceedingly welcoming Danes who go out of their way to put a dinner on for him and his wife.
The dinner was a triumph of what the Danes called hygge, a word that connotes a sense of well-being, of visceral and mental comfort when the world has been reduced to a dining-room size and the curtains have been drawn against the night. It is an atmostphere that all Danish hostesses try to create for their guests, an extra something to go with the food and to which the food itself contributes. More candles must be burned per capita, more flowers bought in their pursuit of this hospitable aura in Denmark than in any other country in the world. […] One of their sayings puts the matter this way: “First flowers on the table; then food.”
And what of the food in Scandinavia?
It is many things: fish, of course, but pork and poultry as well; beets, potatoes, cucumbers; dill, parsley and horseradish; apples and almonds; cream and that golden product of cream, butter. The cooking is pure, and it is simple. Foods taste of themselves in the North: they smack of the sea, or a fresh-water lake, or even the earth. And some, like the garnet lingonberry or the sand-colored mushroom, are not only born of the forest, but bring a breath of pines or birches to to the table with them.
I read the book On My Swedish Island, asked for a pair of snow shoes for Christmas, and started visiting the sauna at the YMCA more regularly.
I started looking at design blogs, longing for pale wood floors, candles, and sheepskin rugs. I loved these rooms that were clean, simple, and cheerfully whimsical, all at once. I pinned like crazy.
I can’t quite explain why this region so captures my imagination. It has something to do with the clear winter light that reminds me of Minnesota, an unafraid embrace of winter (“there is no bad weather, only bad clothing”), the fresh outdoorsiness, the clean-flavored, simple food. It all feels wholesome to me. And when I imagine that life in the woods where I am stirring a pot of stew and growing geraniums in the windows, that is how it feels: soul-nourishing, in the most basic and elemental kind of way. It feels like an important connection, even if it’s one I’ve completely dreamed up.
Dreams are coming true this Friday night when we board a plane to Copenhagen. I am bringing an extra empty suitcase and a fully-charged camera battery. I’m thinking of this as Life Design Inspiration Trip: I want to photograph everything that delights my eye, buy candlesticks and platters and blankets, and come home filled with ideas to make my own life more hygge. I am so excited I am about to burst! Please, if you have suggestions––restaurants, hidden gems, favorite museums, day trips, etc––I am all ears! And if you are there and want to meet up, even better!
