For the past six years, I've been working jobs with two weeks of vacation a year. One week for a camping vacation, a day or two for a kid's field trip, a long weekend, and a couple of days at the holidays, and that's all there was. When I had a vacation day, I felt like I must use every. single. second. because there wasn't a second to waste; I knew that if I didn't refuel my tank, I'd crash and burn, and I also knew that I had limited time to use my one "wild and precious life" and so I'd better get crackin'.
It seems that those days are over.
While I returned to teaching for a million reasons after my fourteen year absence, the primary reason being that teaching feels like going home to myself in the best possible way, I think I had underestimated how weary my work schedule had made me, and how incredible having a summer off would feel.
I have done some good things: I've gotten some little projects done, I've worked on physical fitness. I've read more. I've written a little. I've connected with friends.
This luxury of time - and knowing even in the midst of the longest vacation of the year that there are still other vacations awaiting me in other parts of the year - has change my body chemistry. I wake up a little in awe that this is my life, that I get to enjoy the gift of time in my life.
The best parts of my summer don't at all resemble a checklist. The best parts of my summer have looked slow, simple. I am having a child's summer, in some ways: I awaken when my body chooses (about 6-6:30am most days), I eat when I'm hungry (and not on some schedule), and I spend most of my time outdoors. I go for long walks and some hikes, I've swum in the ocean and in a lake, I've gone to the beach more times than I can count.
Today, I went to the library for the first time since, well, I can't remember the last time, but I no longer knew my library code so I had to get a new card. I thought about going downtown to the big, shiny, strange building with the red wormhole hallways and the diamond shaped glass everywhere, but instead, chose to go to my local library, a tiny little Carnegie Library not far from home. This library is so small that I spent an hour or so, and scanned the ENTIRE non-fiction section. I admired the brick work, the heavy wood doors, the light fixtures, the big windows. I sat in a cozy chair in close proximity to a fan (nobody to speak of has air conditioning in Seattle, and we're in a heatwave!), and I skimmed a book on hygge.
Reading the book in the comfortable, hometown library, no ticking clock to hold me accountable, my mind was free to wander, to pause, to ponder, without a race to the finish, without a drumbeat of orders (to, perhaps, go faster, accomplish something, remember the grocery list...) interfering.
Hygge is a relatively modern concept given to us by the Danes. The Cambridge Dictionary says this:
In America, there's Real Simple Magazine. As far as I can tell, most of Real Simple is a product ad in disguise, encouraging me to spend thousands of dollars on making my life more simple. According to the articles, I should spend large portions of my life organizing my closets with boxes and light up clothing rods and matching baskets, and this would simplify things somehow. This is the American way: we try to buy our way out of problems.
I just don't think that matching baskets in my closet or laundry room are going to make me feel like my life is simpler. Sure, that sounds pretty, but life altering? Hardly.
What I want isn't rows of pretty boxes. Okay, I kind of want them, but what I KNOW is that even if I have rows of pretty boxes in my perfectly organized laundry room, and a vase of fresh flowers in there too, it won't actually make me happier.
And I really, really want to feel deeply, spiritually, wonderfully happy.
This summer, I've been reconnecting with the slower parts of me. I read an entire book in a single sitting, while at the beach. I've gone for long walks, not in exercise clothes, but in sundresses and flat sandals. I've eaten scads of nectarines and Rainier cherries and strawberries and other summer fruit. I've made jam. I have hosted a dozen "happy hours" at my house, usually just with one or two friends, sitting in the shade and sipping rose' wine. I've made pancakes (served, of course, with more summer fruit, and that home made jam). I've grilled, and grilled, and grilled. I've slept in the woods. I've dangled in a hammock. I strung garden lights across the garage, and I hung some candle lanterns under the deck. I've sat under those lanterns with friends, and I can't think of anything more hygge right now.
Today, in the library, sitting next to an old man who was dressed in slacks and a button down shirt with a tie, and a trim, polished older woman who was reading the Wall Street Journal and Cook's Illustrated, I browsed the entire book of hygge, checked out a Japanese cookbook and another beach read. I felt the fan cool my skin, and I sipped my home made iced tea, ice cubes rattling in the insulated flask. That felt pretty hygge.
I know that if I didn't ever work, this would become dull and I'd have to come up with some project of purpose and meaning. But, because I do work, and I work hard, and because life is so often complicated and messy, I've been just soaking up this downtime and loving every single second of it. I've started to hear my own voice a bit louder. I don't feel frenetic, or worried, or anxious. I feel peaceful, and hopeful.
For the rest of the summer, my goal is to find ways to take this feeling with me.
I can't spend everyday cozied up in a public library, or reading on a beach, or lounging in a hammock. Not every day allows for a couple of hours in the woods and on the beach, and not every day is sunny. I know this as well as anyone. However, I am convinced that I can take some of this with me.
I am determined to love my life, this only life that I am given. A life of quiet desperation is just not for me.
To keep this feeling going, I have a few ideas. On the easy end of the spectrum: I need to read more, look at screens less. (I read the old fashioned way, with books made out of paper.) I love reading, but this year with my mind so occupied with my new job and the worries of having a daughter start at two different high schools, I lost my way. I've realized that it's okay to read a bit of fluff - a book on hygge, a beach read - in addition to the more serious things I'm drawn to, and that with that permission, I won't be too tired to read such relaxing pieces. I need to keep spending time outside, and yes, I know that in Seattle in January the sky hovers inches above our heads and it's dark when I go to work and dark when I come home again, but I also know that morning stars are beautiful, that I have good gear (no bad weather, only bad gear: that's what Gore-Tex is for). The chill of the air, the rain, and the dark are just a different way to experience the world, and have their own kind of beauty, and they fill my soul, too. These two things alone will likely sustain me better than the year before.
This summer I packed my car with beach chairs, blankets, towels, and what I jokingly refer to as my "emergency picnic" - an insulated bag that I've packed with a cutting board, knife, enamelware dishes for two, crackers, and shelf-stable jars of dolmas, eggplant dip, bruschetta. (The idea is that I have the basics, but with that foundation I can throw in a bottle of wine, a baguette, some cheese, some fruit, and voila' - gourmet picnic, no fuss!) I've decided that I never, ever want to miss the opportunity to have a picnic, and on one of those lucky moments when a friend and I bump into one another, it is just too wonderful to miss a chance to pop down onto the beach and stick our toes in the water and enjoy dinner. Such moments are more frequent that one might think, because I make them happen.
I want to be the person who stays up late to see the stars, who walks on the beach even when it's raining, who always invites the friend in for a visit. There are a dozen kinds of tea in the cupboard, wine in the wine rack, and I can rustle up something from the fridge - so come in.
Today, I'm not dreaming of big accomplishments. I'm not plotting my novel, or how to elevate next year's AP scores, or how to drop 15 pounds, or some giant house project. Today, it feels remarkably important to dream small: candlelit dinners, board games, walking outdoors, important and unimportant books, cups of tea.
I'm bringing it to work, too. I found a chair with a free sign in my neighborhood, and I hauled it into my classroom and tucked it in a corner next to the big bookcase full of pleasure reading books. I took the framed picture of a woman reading out of my attic and hung it next to the chair, and then I found a lamp with a free sign. I purchased a little metal and glass table designed for outdoors ($7.50!), brought in a Harry Potter Marauder's Map blanket, and my hygge corner - designed, hopefully, to help students love reading, and to have a cozy place to hang out sometimes, but also for me to curl up and read or grade - is complete.
It is a hygge summer, and I am delighted at the prospect of a hygge life. I think it's mine for the taking. I think I - and millions of Danish people - am onto something.
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