Hüzün is one of those delightfully untranslatable words— a Turkish word which is closest to its English sister, melancholy. But it's more than melancholy; in Sufi philosophy, hüzün is a spiritual anguish from the distance felt between oneself and god. It's a sense of longing, perhaps for something we are not exactly sure of. This collective yearning can mostly be felt during the winter, when the skies turn dark over Istanbul, the colour vanishes from people's clothes and faces, and everything sort of moans onward. People are quieter, and seem to breathe at a much slower, greyer pace. It's a poetic suffering, permission to feel deeper, to ache.
