Kaamos is a Finnish word that describes the polar night. Literally, it would mean the time when the sun doesn't rise or set. Although the southern part of the country doesn't experience a complete lack of sunlight, it doesn't mean that we can happily call ourselves out of the depressing effects of the polar night.
Trust me, having the sun rising at 9:30 am and setting at 2:30 pm isn't going to help the mood, especially if the sky is completely covered. Snow would undoubtedly help, but in recent years the first snow fell with a delay every year, and now it seems pretty common to have a black Christmas.
After a short break of summer, when the first leaves start to turn yellow, the word Kaamos comes to fill your mouth with bitterness. Waking up in the morning becomes a mission impossible, a titanic battle between the clock telling it's morning and the biological clock that keeps yelling it's still night. The problem is that they are both right, so the battle won't have an easy solution.
This brings us to the reason why Finnish people are one of the heaviest coffee consumers in the world. It's a necessity, and this also brings to the fact that traditionally, Finnish coffee is pure poison. There's a reason for that too. If you enjoy your coffee, it won't be as effective to keep you awake.
However, in the last decade, we understood that bringing extra suffering to our lives, particularly during winter, won't help. Therefore we found the pleasures of good coffee, which brings in every season, from the rainy spring to the short summer, the windy fall, and the depressing winter, a reason to smile when we drink our second liter of daily coffee.
If you are lucky enough to live in a place where the length of the winter days is longer than seven hours, consider yourself lucky, and have a kind thought for us living in those places where five hours of daylight sound like a dream come true.
Have a great fall and winter,
...wherever you live on this planet.
Lovely post. Tanti saluti!
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