Finding Beauty in the Dark of Winter

“I forgot how dark it is all the time,” my brother commented when he visited us in Michigan’s Keweenaw Peninsula over the holidays.

The sun was trapped behind cloud cover for the entire week he was here, and some years, it only peeks out occasionally during January with near daily lake-effect snowfall.

Days of gray can wear on a person, and winter is far from over.

Nonetheless, social media feeds resound with happiness and ambition. “I’m glad to leave the craziness of 2020 behind,” a friend said. “Looking forward to a better year in 2021.”

I heard many people — at least those who aren’t living with ALS — express similar sentiments. COVID-19 vaccines are rolling out, and people around the world are hopeful that life will get back to normal in 2021. Sadly, some will need to find a new normal after having lost loved ones.

I, too, will be relieved when the pandemic is over, because my husband, Todd, is at high risk with his breathing compromised due to ALS. And if I get sick, who will take care of him? But until there’s a cure for ALS, there’s no getting back to life as normal for those with a disease that keeps taking. Instead, we’ll need to find a new normal, again and again, in each stage of decline with the disease.

For those declining with ALS, 2020 was as good as it gets. We face a 2021 that will be harder. It’s like we’re living in perpetual winter.

So, I’m hunkering down hygge-style. I’ve been burning candles in my Iittala Festivo candleholders.

My Iittala candleholders. (Photo by Kristin Neva)

“Hygge” is a word the Danes use for being intentional at creating coziness to promote well-being. In many Northern regions with short daylight hours during the winter, people have learned to cope with the darkness with special recipes, fireside chats, saunas, warm apple cider, and candles. The unique, ice-like textured surface of the Iittala Festivo holders has been an icon of Finnish elegance for 50 years.

My aunts gave Todd and me the glass, four-ring candlesticks as wedding gifts 17 years ago. My mom later added to my collection by giving me three-ring and five-ring variations. She also gave me several sets of the footed ball candles that were designed for the holders.

I burned tapers occasionally, and I had only displayed the footed balls decoratively for years because they’re not readily available. But this holiday season was so tough and isolating — no school Christmas concerts, no Christmas Eve candlelight service, and saddened by the recent passing of Todd’s father — that I lit my special footed ball candles.

Since then, I’ve been on a candle-burning frenzy. I ordered Swedish teardrop candles from a specialty gift shop, and I picked up two-for-$1 tapers from the dollar store. I burn candles daily. The light brings warmth to our kitchen and to my soul.

If we are to live in a dark, perpetual winter, we must find and create beauty.

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