more lessons Norway taught me about wintering ☀️🪞❄️🏞🏔
do you see the light?
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obvs this is not me, this is Eartha Kitt and her black poodle in a snowy garden looking animated (i think Eartha is serenading us, arms and mouth wide) but this is what i’m working on, getting to a place where i’m facing the outside in a glamorous gown with some beading and fringing too, some fabulous stack heels, a hound that’s also up for my antics, embracing the seasons fearlessly, showing up and showing out! ✨
my relationship with Norwegian winters
I reflect (often) on what Norway taught me about surviving winter (like this piece from 2013 or this one from 2011). I’ve long written about it, ran winter workshops and retreats over the last 12 years, made podcasts, videos and practices in hope of offering little giblets of ideas to others who might find this season challenging. This isn’t a promo list, rather an earnest acknowledgement of how symbolic this season has been in my life. The sensory experience of the season itself when i’ve been living in more northern parts of the world, as well as the metaphorical nature of this time, a phenomenon which can happen any time of year, wherever you are.
‘Wintering’ is a word i first came across in a poem by Sylvia Plath (Wintering, 1962) and who knows who first coined the term, as many might be listed as using it since, including Seamus Heaney (Wintering Out, 1972), and of course, more recently in Katherine May’s celebrated 2020 book, and perhaps we could add the 1975’s song of the same name in 2022?
I first moved to Norway in 2010 and was excited to experience a ‘true’ winter. I was living in the mountains, where snow nestles atop peaks for most of the year, giving you clear messaging about the weather. There’s a running joke which is also true: you should expect to experience four seasons in a day. I’d say summers were short lived (despite long expansive days!) as winter remained for a good eight months of the year. I remember snow in May (!) and felt outraged and i was so very over it. I’d been teased by hope, buds of cherry blossoms were beginning to bloom and i wanted to embrace the dazzling spring, to unfurl after what felt like the longest time not feeling sun, nor experiencing a day without rainfall. I think the longest consecutive period of daily rain was set during that winter.
I lived in Bergen (i mean, i’m based between the uk + Norway so it’s still a ‘home’) the wettest city in Europe averaging 231 days of rain per year, where even on ‘sunny days’, cloud cover often means you don’t really get to see the sun or feel the light. And because the mountains huddle close and tall, nestling you into their craggy nooks, when the sun dips lower during the year (for a good 6 months or so), it’s rare it makes an appearance over the top to shine your way, so chances of actually seeing and feeling direct light is minimal. You just have to go ‘up’ which is, to take a hike to the top of a mountain and hope for the best.
Here’s a picture i took of an old neighbourhood i used to live, and my view on a rare clear day from a hill, looking north-east-ish towards one of the city mountains (Fløyen). My view shows the area around me ‘in the shadows’ atop this high point, and the sun only lights the upper part of Fløyen ahead, leaving the rest of the city in the shade.