On new windows: Finding new traditions for winter

Last month, the windows in our old house were replaced. It was badly needed—the old windows were crappy retrofits from the seventies that barely fit. Fully half of them didn’t open anymore, and the screens on all of them had to be held in place with duct tape. We knew they were bad when we moved in, but such is the price you pay when you rent. Luckily, we ended up with amazing landlords who took the issue seriously, and so in traipsed a bevy of construction workers who yanked out the broken old windows and installed fresh, beautiful, fully-operational modern windows throughout the house.

After three years with shitty windows, Mike and I were both a little awed at how much better the new ones are. Not only do they actually keep—shock and awe—the outside air outside, but they cut the street noise in the house down to almost zero. We live near a busy roadway (or at least as busy as a roadway gets in a town of 6,000) and in the winter without the shelter of the surrounding trees’ leaves, we hear everything. Now it’s suddenly so much quieter in the house, an irritant I hadn’t even really noticed having been taken away.

The other really surprising thing about our new windows is that since they’re so good at actually being windows that we didn’t have to cover them in plastic sheeting to keep the cold out this year. And that means we can actually open them.

I’m sitting in my office right now as an ice storm rages outside. “Rages” is the wrong word for freezing rain—really, it just looks like a gentle rain is falling, except that the rain is sticking to everything. It’s warmish out, as it usually is during an ice storm, and I’ve cracked one of the windows in my office to get some fresh air. Every time a breeze weaves through the trees in the backyard, it’s accompanied with the bell-like sound of ice-coated branches hitting each other, loosing a cascade of small ice chunks onto the frozen snow banks below. It’s actually kind of nice, if you don’t have to go anywhere.

Opening the windows in the winter is a gift. The Germans call it lüften, the act of letting stale inside air out and bringing in fresh outside air, even in the middle of winter. Since getting the new windows, Mike and I have fully adopted lüften, throwing all the windows open in the morning for three or four minutes to bring in the brisk cold. It’s refreshing and invigorating and whether it makes a huge difference or not in air quality, it feels good and refreshing.

In fact, I like it so much that I’ve adopted yet another Nordic tradition: airing out my duvets in the freezing cold. At least once a week on a particular cold and dry day, I drag our duvets (yes, plural—Mike and I each have one on our bed and not to be dramatic but I do think it’s the secret to a happy marriage) outside and hang them on the line for a few hours. They get crisp and fluffy and cool, and they smell so good when you bring them back in that all you want to do is dive into bed. 

Lüften and airing out the duvets again make me think that we don’t really know how to winter in this part of the world. We spend a significant chunk of the year living in winter, and our cultural practice is to complain about it the whole time (we’ll complain about the heat in the summer too—someone recently said to Mike that complaining about the weather is our right as Canadians). 

I know that winter isn’t the easiest time emotionally for a lot of us, but I also think we don’t set ourselves up for success in the winter months: we hole up in our houses and cars and offices, cutting ourselves off from fresh air and the outdoors as much as possible. We wear cotton or polyester and freeze when we do have to go outside. 

More and more, I’m seeing the wisdom of accepting that this different season means that we need to behave differently, and my love for winter has developed as I’ve embraced these new traditions. It started small—years ago, I switched to only wearing merino wool socks. This ruined me for life since they’re so good that I can’t wear normal socks ever again. Eventually I invested in a wool base layer that I wear whenever the temperature goes under -10, and I’m rarely ever actually cold outside anymore. 

It translates to the indoors too, of course. Lüften, certainly, but years before I knew about lüften I learned about hygge, the Danish national embrace of coziness. At this time of year, our lamps turn on low and warm in the evening, and we pile blankets on every available surface. In the winter, my biggest and most important goal for the house is to have it be as cozy as possible. And of course there’s fika, which I’ve written about previously.

I’m not saying that these things are cures for seasonal depression, or that they take away the undeniably shitty parts of winter. Trapped in my house by the ice storm, I absolutely recognise that there are difficulties in this season. 

But my window is cracked, and a whole flock of nuthatches and finches has descended on my backyard bird feeders as I write this, their tiny chirps mixing with the sound of the rain and ice. This winter, I’m thankful for good windows, a warm base layer, and these little moments of joy.

Until next time.