I don’t know if you are familiar with the term “hygge,” which is pronounced “hue-guh.” It is a Danish word that captures a feeling of contentment or coziness – alone or with friends, at home or out and about – that strikes one as special and charming. It’s sort of a gathered ‘round the hearth feeling … a safely out of the storm feeling… at peace with yourself and the world.
I bring up hygge because it perfectly describes my scrapbooking/crafting weekends with my friends.
We try to do it a few times a year as a sort of escape from the clamor of our daily lives and families so that we can devote ourselves to documenting our daily lives and families. (The others do that; I have taken to using the weekends to work on my sewing projects, as – like my scrapbooking friends and their scrapbooking supplies – I can spread out and leave my stuff out, saving time that would be taken up with cleaning up and setting back up and trying to get back into the project to actually get back into doing the project.) It’s a break from reality, a pause in the busy-ness, a breather, a time to reconnect … and it’s lovely.
We pool together and rent a house out at Bodega – a neutral place that doesn’t haunt us with those niggling feelings of “I should be doing X,Y, or Z” – like starting a load of laundry, or cleaning that shelf in the fridge, or straightening out that Tupperware shelf – that you get when you are in your own home.
Plus, of course, we don’t have to kick our family out, or put up with them needing us as we lovingly document our lives with them. (I don’t know why, but there’s something too tempting about Mom being in the other room … even if Dad is right there, they need us to get their O’s and raisins.)
Bodega is in the Goldilocks sweet spot of not too far away, and not too close. We don’t waste a lot of time traveling – it’s only a half hour away – but it’s a world away, perched on the edge of the Pacific, inviting stopping for sunsets and staring out at the waves. When we arrive at our temporary home we push all the furniture to the side, set up long folding tables, schlepp in boxes and bags and carts full of supplies, and then sigh in happy contentment: We’re here, yay!
We have some long-standing traditions we uphold, too. There are movies, and there is the one movie we always watch – Mamma Mia. (Yes, we sing along.) We bring snacks to share, which take over the counter in the kitchen. We talk about taking a walk, and nine times out of 10 we don’t take a walk. (That would involve dressing and putting on shoes and effort.) We bring wine – the sweet stuff – and we share our lives. (Don’t worry, fam – it’s mostly good.) And of course we scrap, or sew, or do just nothing in the best possible way.
This year the winds were especially loud and brisk, so being inside, cozy, with a huge picture window overlooking Doran Beach felt especially good: the very definition of hygge. I don’t know how it could get any better, really, as we were all in pajamas, crafting away, See’s candy a few steps away, chatting with good friends, accomplishing hours’ and hours’ worth of work. (Oh, and belting out ABBA loud enough to probably be heard in the next house, even over the wind)
We came away with more than just pages of pictures or blocks of quilts – we came away with a sense of accomplishment, of renewal, of connection. All the effort that goes into making the weekend happen – the finding of a common weekend, the rental of the house, the money, the shopping, the gathering of supplies, the arrangements for our households to survive our absence – all worth it.
And as absence makes the heart grow fonder, returning home to our own space and families gives us another sense of hygge … even if it means we have laundry and meals to plan and O’s and raisins to assemble.
Juliana LeRoy wears many hats, including wife, mother, paraeducator and writer. She can be spotted around Windsor gathering material, or reached at ml****@so***.net.
