'Hygge' or 50 Shades of Grey?!

A BIG slap in the face. I immediately fell back in my bed. 

My puffy jetlagged eyes looked at the clock, 8.48AM. I looked out the window, DARK Gray. I looked back at the clock in complete disbelief.

Rising slowly to the surface: the winter darkness of Denmark (or as popular culture calls it “hygge,” I’ll come back to that...).

I mean, I grew up here, I knooow it gets dark and gray, but seriously this is what you call a sunrise?!

I pride myself for living in the gray, holding nuances as an n’betweener.

Well my dear home country Denmark humbled me. I have more gray to experience.

There are 50 shades of gray here (not always the fun ones). A full rainbow of grayness, your pick.

But somehow Danes call this “hygge,” or perhaps convince ourselves of that.

Hard to pronounce, and maybe harder to explain. 

Hygge - a word that has been widely commercialized in the past years. But magically all the Airbnb homes in the Western world have turned into hygge-homes.

Putting my dark gray humor away, winter is the prime time for hygge.

Denmark is known for hygge. An inexplicable word. Roughly translates to "coziness," but it means so much more than that. It’s a lived experience. Just like the n’betweener experience. 

What Denmark beautifully and brutally reminds me of is: Impermanence.

The gray shifts, it moves, it changes. There is not one gray, there are many grays. 

Today for Winter Solstice we beautifully balance dark and light. This is the ultimate n’betweener task. To allow space for both and.

As we move into holiday season, I want to provide you this reminder of allowing yourself to stay in the gray. 

That this shall pass too, whether that moment is beautiful or difficult. 

You can choose to appreciate the way things are at this very moment. Not what they could be in two months from now or a year from now or hell even maybe ten minutes from now. 

In this impermanence. In this n’between. In this current gray. Let the uncertainty allow you to completely immerse yourself in the now.

Hygge-hugs from København

Nora