Every once in a while, a word comes along that pretty much sums up how I am feeling, and what I am working toward as I power through this little life of mine. And no, it’s not an expletive. Lately, that word is hygge.
Pronounced 'heu-gah', hygge is a Danish word that is at once a noun, a verb, an adjective, and an exclamation. Versatile as those darn Danes can be, hygge is also a feeling.
“When your heart swells with the general perfection of your world at that particular moment, you are hygge.” hyggelife.com
As I wind down my maple-syprupy sweet March break on the Quebec ski slopes, I am reminded that hygge “happens” when we stop and marvel at the moment. A perfect snowflake caught in my son’s eyelash. My family, squished together on a quad chairlift as we drift like a cloud. A shot of schnapps in my après ski hot chocolate.
Our unavoidable Canadian winter – that the collective “we” tend to complain about – is the perfect backdrop for hygge. Instead of jumping on the first Cuban charter flight out of here – maybe it’s time we all added a little more hygge to our busy, over-scheduled lives – and simply, ironically... “chill”.
Light a fire. Pull on dry, wool socks. Place a candle by the bathtub. Bake something from scratch. Curl up under a scratchy wool throw, that feels like cashmere if you give it a chance.
Hygge is wind-burnt cheeks and the deliriously satisfying feeling after a day on the slopes. But is also the feeling one gets handing a hot coffee and a sandwich to someone down on their luck. Or receiving a postcard from a traveling friend, instead of a bill.
Hygge is an open smile.
As we move from winter toward spring, I’m not packing my hygge away with my woolies. I plan on sticking a crocus into an egg cup and placing it on my windowsill. I’ll add less sugar to my lemonade and pucker at the lemony loveliness of it all. And I’ll even roll with that first backyard mosquito bite that swells up like pride.
