Winter in New Hampshire as Told Through Björk’s Vespertine
Winter 25-26 I’m told was a record-breaking level of cold in New England, which I got to experience while up in New Hampshire visiting Steven’s brewery. Growing up in Arizona and California, I never experienced snow days or weather in the single digits; So when we moved to the East Coast, everyone kept telling me I was going to have a hard time handling the cold. That I’d be suffering in bulky winter clothes, shoveling snow, defrosting my car, and struggling to drive over icy roads.
While my husband and brother in law did a lot of snow blowing and shoveling this winter, I did a fair amount of shoveling snow off my car, walking over ice, and keeping my car from hydroplaning off the road. People I know in California and Hawaii ask me all the time if the winter is a struggle. And for me, the snow, the sleet, and the frigid air were nothing compared to how lonely winter made me feel.
I’m someone who loves being out, socializing, and meeting new people; So snow days make me feel very isolated. And blizzards causing the grocery store, restaurants, and gym to closed make me feel even more desperate for human interaction. These are the days when I wish that I lived in New York City proper so I’d know that just the act of leaving my home would result in me seeing some life.
In the end, I decided to do the one thing my brain always ends up doing when I’m feeling overwhelmed: Romanticize. On the evening of November 25th, when I drove through the first signs of snow in Kingston NH, I was listening to “Pagan Poetry” by Björk. Being that it was her signature 2001 winter album, it really captured the feeling of the snow falling around me. I then started seeing imagery of swans all over the antique stores in anticipation of the winter season, and decided it was a sign to delve into this album in a way I never before had.
The reason it worked so well to score the season is because it’s light and cool and refreshing the way snow or cold air feels, yet it also encapsulates how desperate winter makes you feel. The sound of the album is experimental and explorational, almost as if trudging through the snow (“An Echo a Stain”) or feeling light flakes fall on your face as you take in your surroundings (“Frosti”).
Yet there are many of the songs that perfectly capture the feeling of sitting inside and looking outward at the world you can’t explore until it clears (“Cocoon” and “Heirloom”). It’s the loneliness and the passion that stirs in you from the numbness and the lack of ability you have to go and do what you’d like (“It’s Not Up To You,”) that really made me fall for this album.
Björk has stated that the album is designed to give you a cocoon-like feeling; And from that I take much positivity. It’s so easy to get lost in how depressing winter feels, that you forget that you’re in a stage before a blossoming. That soon we will transition to spring and things will once again be beautiful in a way that is freeing. It’s easy to get so bored in your state of hibernation, transformation, and healing, that you stop looking forward to the outcome.
I documented the winter throughout posts on my Instagram stories that represented the album helping me get through my emotions, which I’ve now compiled and can look back on as really beautiful days despite how much they physically hurt or inconvenienced me. It makes me want to look at other emotionally tough times and see it through a lens that makes me appreciative of not only the benefits I get from surviving it, but all it can mean to me in the moment.
