Church bells ring in the distance as the kettle boils, warm rushes of steam pouring into the bright, open kitchen. It’s Sunday morning in Copenhagen, Denmark and I’m about to make a cup of coffee and begin my day. The concept of slow living has come to hold almost mythic status for me in the last few years, culminating in my move from Canada to Copenhagen. Despite the inherent romance of the concept, one thing that has become abundantly clear to me since moving is that slow living can feel out of reach no matter which corner of the globe you occupy.
I stood in my kitchen my first week in Copenhagen making a meal (a most generous use of the term) consisting of pasta with hot sauce and cheddar cheese as its only two toppings. Yes, not even a hint of tomato sauce in sight. That was over four years ago, and since then I can happily say that my meals have become far more edible and my approach to cooking far more respectable. You see, there's something in the water here, and quite soon after my move, I began to notice the care and attention poured into creating meals and occasions with friends and family. There is a deliberateness that exists in Copenhagen that is hard to find in other cities. Everything, even the most standard of tasks is done with beauty in mind. Fresh cut flowers, homemade desserts and handcrafted cocktails are constants at gatherings of friends and family. Simplicity infuses everything and nothing should be overdone. From sustenance to sustainability, Copenhagen really is the embodiment of the Scandinavian ideal everyone’s talking about.
Looking back, my approach to slow living didn’t happen all at once. It's a skillset much like speaking the Danish language, which I needed to practice and hone. Reveling in the realisation one day that I understood the chatter of the Danish couple waiting in line ahead of me at the grocery store, and that I genuinely wanted to devote two hours of my Saturday to attempting to bake a loaf of sourdough bread: utterly unexpected but strangely comforting.
Despite this, the practice of slow living in its entirety is still very much out of reach for me. This realisation has spurred me on to try for something more attainable: that is, slow moments. These are the stolen minutes between a hectic work week and a busy Saturday afternoon. The half hour that I spend making myself a pour-over coffee and drinking it by candlelight on a weekday morning, the new Monocle firmly in hand. In a world where our leisure time is often commodified, it can be hard to resist the urge to take time-saving measures every chance we get. Slow moments necessitate a taking back of our time. A small rebellion. A reclamation, if you will.
I seek solace in slow moments: The luxury of biking rather than driving, breathing in deep lungfuls of fresh air on the way to work. A decadent hour spent in bed on the weekend thumbing through a favourite book, pages dog-eared and worn, cocooned in fresh linen sheets. An hour spent picking out flowers at the local market, swooning at time spent in floral abstraction. The satisfaction inherent in sipping coffee by candlelight on a weekday morning, welcoming stillness before the day begins.
These moments although not as frequent as I would like, nonetheless fill a space in my body that needs nourishing. There is luxury in expanding and filling up space purely for myself. Preparing a late breakfast of fresh blueberry scones and hand-ground coffee brought back from a recent trip to Japan, is truly what my Sunday dreams are made of. In reality, I don’t often get to do this. Life and work stand quite firmly in the way. But, maybe that’s what makes slow moments so sustaining, that they are rare. As emails build up and real life knocks (hot-sauce-on-pasta in all its glory), I wait, sipping my coffee and letting the smell of fresh blueberry scones spread throughout our home. Perhaps, on these slow Copenhagen mornings, I feel a little closer to where I’m supposed to be.
