Slow Winter Living in the North + VIDEO
Happy New Year! Yes, I know—it’s already well underway. But I’ve welcomed this new year with the mindset that I’m going to slow down. Even more than before. Life is already pretty slow as it is, but sometimes there’s still too little empty space between everyday chores, work, house tasks, and creative projects. That cluttered feeling creeps in.
Now, I’ve decided to tackle just a few things each day. Today, it was baking three loaves of bread: one for us and two for our neighbors across the lake. I skied across the frozen lake, we sat for a while over coffee, and I skied back. By the time I returned, it was already dark—just like that, the day was done.
It feels unsettling to spend a day “not accomplishing anything.” But if you pause and look at it with curiosity, you realize there are no catastrophic consequences to getting “nothing done.”
Emphasis on “nothing done”—because, let’s be real, it’s rare to spend an entire day doing absolutely nothing. When you take a closer look, you’ll notice you actually did plenty, even if it wasn’t on your to-do list: rearranging books by a more pleasing color gradient, sweeping the kitchen floor, keeping the house fires burning, clearing snow, walking the dogs, running a load of laundry, cleaning out the sink…
All those little things count. They’re part of living.
Winter has continued in strange ways. There’s still only about a fifth of the snow we had last January, at least judging by eye. The heart of winter has passed, we’re over halfway through, and the light is slowly increasing, but it still feels like we’re waiting for winter to truly arrive. This winter has felt harder than the last five I’ve spent in the North.
It’s not difficult to live surrounded by one-and-a-half-meter snowdrifts or in temperatures that might dip to -50°C (-58F). What’s much harder is living in an almost snowless, cloudy, and windy season that barely qualifies as winter. The house has been extremely cold—without snowdrifts insulating the stone foundation, it feels like even mild winter winds creep in through the corners, and no amount of heat stays inside.
Beyond the cold, there have been other problems: roof sheets coming loose in high winds, pipes freezing without snow to insulate them, and the village road turning into a sheet of ice. The car even slid sideways once, completely out of control. Sigh.
On the bright side, the slowly growing daylight brings some joy. The sun has peeked above the tree line, creating beautiful, almost eternal sunrise moments around midday. And the northern lights still shine in the evenings, no matter what’s happening with winter on the ground. The sky is always there to admire.
In addition to so-called "doing nothing," we’ve been going on skiing trips. The snow took an incredibly long time to arrive, and even now, it’s still not deep enough for skiing everywhere. We’ve skied on the frozen lake near home, in the surrounding forests, and on nearby fells.
Sometimes the weather is mild, almost thawing, where you could nearly ski without gloves. Other times, it’s -30°C (-22F), with scarves freezing to your face and your hair turning into icy, cobweb-like frost.
Regardless of the weather, the act of skiing itself, the natural scenery, and the joy of winter outings remain as wonderful as ever.
Slowing down has also meant trying to silence that nagging voice in the back of my mind, the one that keeps clucking that I should be producing content for this blog, social media, and YouTube faster. “Everyone else is doing it,” it says. I can see it, too—others are quicker, more efficient, always on top of the latest trends, and so on. I’m trying not to care.
I despise that part of the modern world (and yes, there are many aspects of today’s world I enjoy, but not all of them) that insists we must compete for everyone’s attention. The idea that the more content you produce—be it texts, pictures, videos, funny memes, polls, or other forms of entertainment—the better you’ll reach your audience and the more money will flow into your account, is something I find deeply unappealing.
That might very well be true, and I alone can’t fight the algorithms of big companies. But I’m still going to refuse to play along. Because it will crush you if you start dancing to the tune of algorithms and other, more or less, artificial intelligences. It’s much better to dance to your own rhythm.
So, if you don’t hear from me here or elsewhere, I’m still alive. Possibly skiing in the fells. Or standing in my own backyard admiring frost-covered trees. Or sitting on a tree stump in the nearby forest, listening to the clucking of ptarmigans. Or having coffee with a neighbor. I’m still here.
Here’s my first video of the year (and yes, that voice in the back of my mind clucked about how it should’ve been done earlier and faster... but SHHH!). Take your time and enjoy this video slowly.
Wishing you all the best for the new year —may it be filled with joy, peace, and moments that truly matter.
♥ Sanna