CAPTAIN COPENHAGEN

Captain Copenhagen tells the story of Helen and her daughter Leonie. After Leonie is diagnosed with depression at 14 years old, Helen decides that they need to move to the country that has been attributed as one of the happiest countries in the world, Denmark. Her hope is that she can use the country, culture and everything Danish to “cure” her daughter and make her happy again. Unfortunately, it’s not that simple.

This blog is a work of fiction. It includes comedic episodes from Helen’s perspective as she tries to navigate Danish life, and more subdued episodes from Leonie’s perspective as she tries to navigate her mother.

All episodes can be found at www.captaincopenhagen.co.uk

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TRIGGER WARNING: Captain Copenhagen explores the topic of mental health.

The Art of Hygge

Helen, Mother

The size of our new apartment was what an estate agent would call ‘cosy’. Not that we had much to put in it. I had decided that Denmark was going to be a fresh start. We would bring as little as possible. As little as we could cram into our six overflowing suitcases that required sitting on to fasten.

We were going to fully embrace ourselves into our new Danish lifestyle so we had to be selective about what we brought here. I sat on the floor of our empty, unfurnished living room and pulled one of the suitcases towards me. The one that Leonie had described as inexplicably heavy. I unzipped the case’s gritted teeth and admired my selected items. Candles, many many candles. A perhaps excessively large suitcase full of candles, but I had my priorities straight.

Hygge. This is what the Danish are known for. It’s quite difficult to describe exactly what hygge is, and I’m sure any explanation I try to give based on my research from the internet would not do it justice, however, I shall make an attempt: the essence of hygge is to relax and enjoy a calming moment with loved ones or alone. Candles seem essential.

It is one of the main tools that I must master.  It is essential to the art of Danishness. I knew there must be something in it that would lead to Leonie’s happiness. Relaxing her, uplifting her.

This would be it. I could feel it in my newly found honourary Danish bones.

I dimmed the lights and lit the candles positioning them around the empty room. All of the candles. All of the many many candles. Surely, the more candles, the more hygge. The ratio seemed rational. Some music to set the mood was the finishing touch. It seemed like preparing for hygge wasn’t a million miles away from preparing for a date.

I had sent Leonie out to the shops asking for the most Danish thing I could think of. I wasn’t thrilled about the idea of trying pickled herring, but I wasn’t going to turn my nose up at anything that had the potential to incite Danishness.

That aside, I knew that she would probably be home any minute, and so I quickened my pace. Hygge with haste!

The door opened in that new sad way I had gotten all too used to. It felt like over the last year my child’s pace had dramatically slowed. The slow creak of the door opening and closing sent both sadness and determination rushing through me. I was going to hygge with all my might.

I waited in the living room, cross legged on the floor. A position that the arthritis in my knees was telling me was not a good idea, and yet, I would persevere. Enduring and pushing through pain is the key to relaxing.

I heard her tentative footsteps walk through the hallway and towards the living room, or the Haven of Hygge, as it was to be known from this day forward. I could sense a slight bit of hesitation, and I heard the door open a little. Just enough for a little eye to peek through and survey the scene.

I looked up at that peeking eye and tried to encourage her in.

‘Welcome, please enter’, I whispered in the most calming David Attenborough style voice I could master.

The door was immediately closed and the footsteps that had been before so slow, suddenly felt a lot my hurried. It was clearly working! Just the presence of hygge in the house was already causing the sadness to leave her and fill her with new energy.

I leapt up and in a very un-hygge like fashion ripped open the door and tore after her. I caught up to her just as she was about to enter her bedroom and bear hugged her from behind in what I can only describe as a glomp.

‘It’s time’, I whispered in her ear. I needed to use my David Attenborough voice to try and bring back the relaxing mood. The David Attenborough voice which shall here on out be known as the “Hygge Hush”, a requisite to be used in the newly named Haven of Hygge.

After some coaxing.

Or rather…

After a lot of coaxing, we sat cross legged on the living room floor together in the centre of the candles. I took her hand and inhaled deeply. Trying to open up my chest and let the Danish aura flow through me. I looked over to see my daughter so ‘un-opened-up’ that she was practically foetal.

‘It’s ok’, I said to her, ‘it might seem scary, or strange, but this will bring us peace’.

She unfurled herself and looked in my direction, her gaze meeting mine for the first time.

‘Mum?’ she asked. The first tentative word that had uttered from her lips since she got home.

She was going to open up to me, and tell me that this was working and that she felt so much better. This was the moment I had been waiting for.

‘Why are we having a seance?’

Oh.

Sitting there frozen for quite a while I took a moment and surveyed the scene. The dark room filled with slow, and what I now realise can only be described as haunting, music. The rings and rings of candles that we sat in the centre of, our heads lowered, our hands held. I gave into my arthritis, fell on to my back staring up at the ceiling.

‘Who died?’ she asked. She looked confused, panicked and saddened, which was not the relaxed and uplifted look I had been going for.

Oh great hygge of Danishness, how I have failed thee.

Maybe next time.