We have seasons when we flourish and seasons when the leaves fall from us, revealing our bare bones. Given time, they grow again. ― Katherine May

Beyond hygge: the kind of wintering we all need right now

During the first winter of the pandemic, I wrote about Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, a brilliant book by Katherine May. Today, with the added experience of a few more winters, I am revisiting these words, updated to reflect my changing relationship with winter.

It seems fitting to revive this article, as I now write a newsletter about books — and this story is about a beautiful, beautiful book.

John Henry Twachtman | Winter Harmony, c. 1890/1900

It was the winter of 1991.

My aquamarine bib snow pants were strapped onto my shoulders and bunched over my boots, my coat barely zipped up over my sweater. I was Ralphie’s brother from A Christmas Story. The snow was piled up higher than my head, and in the backyard, I kept getting stuck as I tried to cross the boreal terrain. My nose was icicled and I was too warm under my layered winter gear. But it was a delight to partake in this — Minnesota’s famous Halloween Blizzard.

Every Minnesotan has a story about it.

Ask any ’80s kid and they’ll talk about it like it was the most magnificent event in which they’ve ever partaken. Ask someone from earlier generations and they’ll reminisce about having had to shovel their way out of their homes and unbury their cars as though three feet of snow is just a nuisance, not a sparkly, absolutely enchanting occurrence.

I yearn for that kind of childlike merrymaking, where the deeper the snow the bigger the celebration and the lower the temperatures the taller the tales.

But, like Santa Clause and Rudolph, these delights melted away along with my youth. Now, when I see snow falling I think about the condition of the roads. When the thermometer has a below-zero reading, my mind darts to drafty windows and how to keep my kids warm when they can’t wear their bulky coats in their carseats.

Not anymore.

This winter, I am embracing the Scandinavian heritage my home state was founded on. When I see snow, I marvel at how it sets the streets aglitter. And when the temperatures plummet, I dream about bundling up under a blanket by the fire. I’m not simply enduring winter like I do year after year; I’m using it as an excuse to rest, reflect, and rejuvenate.

This winter I am healing.

You may have heard of the Danish word hygge. It’s not a word so much as a concept or way of being. Not quite translatable into English, it is essentially a coziness that evokes a feeling of contentment or well-being.

Hygge is a big leather chair, a weighted blanket, and a good book. It’s drinking wine by a crackling fire and cuddling with a pet or loved one. A way of living as second nature as bicycling in Denmark, hygge has only recently hit the U.S. — and to much fanfare.

Hygge is a delicious idea. It’s enough to get me through until spring. But I recently came across another concept that has a slightly stronger pull for me: wintering.

Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times

According to British author

Katherine May

in her book Wintering: The Power of Rest and Retreat in Difficult Times, winter is not just a time of year. Everyone has their own personal winters, or seasons of difficulty in which we must nurture ourselves and our souls to come out better than we were upon entering them.

Sometimes winters take place in the summer. Other times, winters are a number of years. A week. One day. Winters like those May speaks of are a time to welcome our hardships (they’re coming for us regardless, but embracing the cold makes them hurt a little bit less) and give ourselves the time and space we need to get to the other side.

“Wintering brings about some of the most profound and insightful moments of our human experience, and wisdom resides in those who have wintered.”

— Katherine May

A metaphor and a way to embrace the season, wintering is everything we need to do right now. We as a collective whole need to hunker down and heal. There is global hunger for it.

Many of us are still trying to be as productive as possible (I am so guilty of this). But maybe instead of being productive this winter, we should focus on doing what we need to survive.

I slept until 8:45 this morning — later than I’ve slept in recent memory. I have two children. When I was up at 5:00 with the younger one, my initial reaction was to get up and grab my computer. To get some writing done. To produce. But after getting my kid back to bed, I, too, retreated.

I wintered, and I feel incredible for it.

In Wintering, May talks about the magical transformation trees in northern climates undergo: “The changes that take place in winter are a kind of alchemy, an enchantment performed by ordinary creatures to survive.”

Is it magic? No. It’s nature, and it’s in you and it’s in me. It’s asking us to listen to our instincts and go to bed a little earlier; wake up a little later.

It’s time to indulge, not extensively, not unhealthily, but in a way that warms the heart and fuels the soul.

Winter is a time to take the naps we haven’t made time for because we’ve been attending to everything that needs doing. Because winter isn’t about doing, it’s about being — whatever being is to you. And for me, being is slowly reading a book in the quiet of the morning with a coffee in hand, the whole day ahead of me.

Yes, get outside and snowshoe or ski if the snow attracts you. But if the cold makes you recoil a little bit, embrace your desires and give in to the urge to be cozy and relax. Some proper wintering with a little hygge woven into it makes me excited about the rest of this winter, and the mere thought of spring makes me nostalgic for spitting fires and wool sweaters; for resting and rejuvenating.

Before the snow melts and the trees blossom, I am going to drink that coffee with heavy whipping cream, make those hearty stews, and find my healing. I am going to retreat. And come springtime, when it’s warm enough to feel the sun on my skin, I will be open enough to receive all the renewal the season has ready for me.

I received a holiday card this year. “Kindness is like snow,” it reads. “It beautifies everything it covers.” This quote by Kahlil Gibran — accompanied by an image of a man in a crown holding a robin while a goose and a fox have tea in the foreground — is the kind of specific beauty you can only find this time of year.

This winter, I intend to bask in the magic and let the cold, the snow, and the darkness magnify the beauty all around me.

Now it’s your turn: How are you wintering? How are you retreating? Fellow Minnesotans, care to share your story about the 1991 snowstorm?

What I’m reading: Tom Lake by Ann Patchett; The Quickening by Elizabeth Rush; Harry Potter e la Pietra Filosofale (HP in Italian); and Brass: A Novel by Xhenet Aliu.¹

What I’m listening to: Girl in Translation by Jean Kwok.

Love,

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This post was originally published in Wit & Delight.

1. Thank you for the recommendation,

Kailey Brennan DelloRusso

! I’ve only just begun the book but the writing is phenomenal!