Gezellig is an obscure Dutch word, which is to say that there are few words like it. My buddy Dirkswaager told me years ago when we were in the Netherlands that Gezellig means: safe, warm, happy, comfortable and content (note: the Netherlands can be a very cool and wet country and so the word “warm” always creeps into any definition revolving around comfort). An old man in a bar in Rotterdam told me that Gezellig means: “Feeling happier in a public place than possible at home.” An ex-porn star I met in Amsterdam told me that Gezellig means: “Being so happy, that you would cry if you found out you had to leave your surroundings.”
After a few months of traveling Europe, I gave up trying to get a standard definition for this bitching word. I had the gist though. Gezellig, essentially means happiness of a comfortable sort, perhaps even of the most comfortable sort.
Comfort is kind of a diffuclt concept to apply universally. Some of our grandparents were comfortable so long as they had a roof and a fire. Some of my friends' children can't get comfortable without a television on. Maybe that's why gezellig is so difficult to translate; maybe the Dutch don't even know exactly what it means. Maybe they each have their own personal definition of gezellig.
Yeah, that's the ticket. There is no universal gezellig. Perhaps we all have our own. Looking to the movies (where most of my education comes from), we learn that Jeff Spicoli felt gezellig as long as he had some tasty waves and a nice buzz. Television teaches us that Norm and Cliff couldn't really feel gezellig outside of Cheers. Lovers feel gezellig in each other's arms. Drunks feel gezellig at the bottom of a bottle. Pedophiles feel gezellig in primary schools; preachers feel gezellig in the pulpit. One person's gezellig could easily be another person's crawling skin. Gezellig then, is more than a word, it is a state of mind.
And maybe by figuring out what makes us feel gezellig, we can get to the heart and soul of what makes us happy. Maybe if we figure out our own gezellig, we can figure out our sources of happiness and find our own inner peace, and thus our source of comfort and goodwill; perhaps we can even figure out who stole my skateboard when I was eight but maybe I'm getting my hopes up there.
I feel safe, happy, comfortable, warm, more comfortable than I could at home, and so happy that I would cry if I had to leave whenever I watch a baseball game on a beautiful day, a cold beer in one hand and a soft, grass-caressing breeze kissing my neck. I feel gezellig in the arms of a beautiful woman, on the beach watching the sunset and whenever I'm sitting around with friends, jamming the harmonica and improvising lyrics. I feel gezellig in the sun with loved ones, surrounded by tunes and smiles. I feel gezellig listening to the truth and knowing the lies. I feel gezellig when the laughter flows so thickly that I can't feel the boos. I feel gezellig when I feel free, when I'm tapping these keys and in that one moment when there is nothing more than a you and a me. I have no idea what all that says about me, but I feel good just typing that out.
And as the man says, feeling good is good enough.
May your days and nights be gezellig and may all your happiness be genuine.
Or, barring that, hopefully no one will steal your skateboard.