YORKTON - We should all find ways to embrace the idea of Hygge.
Regular readers will recall in the March 6 edition of Yorkton This Week there was a story on the Western Development Museum branch in Yorkton hosting an event focused on the ‘Art of the Hygge’.
The afternoon featured candle-making, dala horse colouring, woven paper hearts, a gnome craft, a bookmark weaving craft, cozy reading corner, wool carding demonstration, scavenger hunt, and other Scandinavian-themed crafts.
The common thread of each of the activities was that they could be done at home, and the simple process of creation was as important in terms of relaxation from everyday life, and probably far more important than whatever the finished creation was.
For those unfamiliar with Hygge, the Oxford dictionary defines it as “a quality of coziness and comfortable conviviality that engenders a feeling of contentment or well-being (regarded as a defining characteristic of Danish culture).”
The idea of ‘coziness’ at home is an easy one to lose in our modern world.
We are so tethered to the ‘web’ and if our cellphone dings, we reach to look at whatever message is there, as if that sound triggers an hypnotic suggestion we are forced to obey.
And, when it’s not the cellphone, it’s the laptop screen and a steady scrolling of social media sites, like hungry hummingbirds, stopping briefly here, then flitting somewhere else, rarely delving into anything more deeply than a look at its shiny surface.
Television is little better where the channel switcher is forever in-hand allowing a regular surf through the myriad of channels.
No wonder relaxation can be elusive, the idea of cozy being lost, as our attention span has shrunk and seem constantly in flux.
In the process of all this the old adage about stopping to smell the flowers seems somehow foreign now.
But it shouldn’t be.
We all need a happy place we can go to slip away from the constantly changing demands of careers and mortgages and children needing to be at three different things all at the same time.
For some that place is a cup of herbal tea and a good book.
Others might prefer a recliner and some jazz sounds.
It might indeed be stopping to smell the flowers, the pansies and snapdragons they planted, marveling at the fat bumblebee visiting the same flowers.
It might be a game of chess, or Hive, or checkers with a bud over a coffee.
Or you might paint, macrame, felt, throw pots, or walk the dog.
It doesn’t matter what the happy place is, only that we remember it’s OK to unplug and go there so we can regenerate.
As spring nears, it’s a good time to get back to ‘me time’ as Yorkton certainly gives us options to just ‘chill’.
