Since the pan­dem­ic began, I’ve been spending my days at home on my half-acre prop­er­ty, which I long ago nicknamed ‘SoFUH,’ which stands for Sokol Family Urban Homestead.

When I’m not out work­ing the land, and by that I mean dead-heading rho­do­den­drons, fuchsias, and geraniums, pulling weeds, or picking green beans and chard, I can be found inside either messing up or clean­ing up the kitch­en, perched on the sofa videoconferencing with loved ones, cor­re­spond­ing, reading, re­search­ing, or mending.

When that got old, I found myself looking around my house, an­tic­i­pat­ing the long, soggy, cold days of the Pacific Northwest winter and wondering how that’s going to go.

At the be­gin­ning of the pan­dem­ic, a friend loaned me the “Little Book of Hygge: Danish Secrets to Happy Living.” According to author Meik Wiking, hygge (pronounced hyoo-guh) is a concept that in­volves gathering with friends, enjoying good food, and being comfortable and cozy. Multiple well-placed unscented candles, house plants, and lots of cozy textiles along with gathering with small groups of friends and enjoying simple good food is what creates hygge, ac­cord­ing to the book. “The true essence of hygge is the pursuit of everyday happiness and it’s basically like a hug, just without the physical touch,” Wiking writes. How fitting for these physically distanced pan­dem­ic times.

So suffice it to say that I am taking the threat of a long, soggy, dark, and lonely winter seriously. But hygge could be the antidote!

With to­geth­erness removed from the equation and suf­fi­cient candles on hand, nat­u­rally my thoughts turned to house plants. I became obsessed. I tried to buy some, sight unseen, via phone, from the local nursery, but that was a di­sas­ter. The kind person who helped me must have thought I lived in an office build­ing. No, that ball of a ficus on a braided trunk wasn’t going to work with the vibe I was trying to create.

But then I dis­cov­ered all sorts of plants for sale online, and be­fore I knew it, I had launched head first down a botanic rabbit hole. Next thing I knew, I was the overwhelmed owner of not one, but two very large house plants that arrived from Pennsylvania via Fed Ex in giant boxes, miraculously still alive.

I’m not sure what I was thinking. Under the influence of the threat of a lonely, stormy, dark winter looming on the horizon, ample time on my hands, a laptop at my fingertips, and hygge on my mind, I had chosen two five- to six-foot trees, thinking that of course they wouldn’t be as tall as the advertised height. But by golly, the six-footers arrived, looking just like the fake ones they sell at Ikea for ten times less, without the mess of real dirt, yards of brown paper and packing tape, and the need for water.

Now I’m looking around my house trying to find a suitable spot where the plants actually con­trib­ute to the hygge, rather than remind me of a disturbing mosquito and ant infested jungle episode of the TV series "Naked and Afraid."

As ridiculous as my plant-buying episode may sound, this is one of my ways of preparing to hunker down. I be­lieve that we’re in this pan­dem­ic for the long haul. Even when a vaccine be­comes avail­able, I sus­pect it will take a while for active im­mu­ni­ty to take place in the com­munity on the level to make it ‘safe’ for us myeloma folks to resume some semblance of our pre-Covid-19 lives. It is time to prepare for a long hibernation. Many of our pre­vi­ous ways of living and coping are not pos­si­ble right now. So many things, in­clud­ing mul­ti­ple myeloma, are beyond our con­trol. But we can con­trol how we cultivate our self-care and maximize our well-being, and that looks dif­fer­en­t for everyone.

For me, part of that is creating a cozy, comforting, and pleasing en­viron­ment that I can retreat to after cold, soggy walks, stressful doctor appoint­ments, or during hard days. For you, it may be some­thing com­pletely dif­fer­en­t.

Maybe I’ll even start hugging my hygge trees.

May we all go from strength to strength!