I’ve got my philosophy to keep me warm.

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…I love snow. I love Blizzards. I love Winter. It’s my favorite season.

 The other day, I was telling my friend Joce that Winter is good for the soul. She’s been quite down lately, as she was laid off right before Christmas and is having a difficult time finding another job. It’s hard to witness, as she is a kind hearted friend, who finds the joy and good in everything and everyone…Watching her sink into despair has been a dark experience for all of us.

 Joce has had a couple of graces granted by the universe over the last few days, so she was definitely perkier than she has been in weeks when we had dinner a couple of nights ago. She was able to take a couple of steps back and re-examine the situation, instead of be deer in headlights searching frantically for a job.

 She is a welder, and she loved her last job because she had been there for years, and was able to be artistic (She worked for a set building and prop making company). She thinks that she is experiencing difficulty finding a new job because she is appears quite feminine and dainty, in contrast to most other women welders. She feels that other companies are afraid that she may not be able to handle the work, or the attention that she would get in the shop. She has gone to a few interviews, where a test should have followed but she hasn’t done a test yet. At the last place, she asked why they weren’t going to do the test, and the fellow said "Well, we don’t have facilities for you to use on the night shift” (A woman’s washroom) , and she said, “Oh, okay” and went home disheartened. Later on she thought, “Why would they bring me in for an Interview for the night shift if they already knew I was a woman?”  The only conclusion she came to was that at the interview, they must have decided that she wouldn’t be able to handle sharing a bathroom with the men.

 Sometimes, I think Joce may be on the wrong career path. She has an artist’s soul, and while she was building sets, there was an outlet for it with the welding. If it’s going to turn into a gritty nightshift job, I don’t know if this is the right adventure for her. I know she’ll need to make her own decisions and I will let her.

During our long talk, I told her my philosophy on Winter, and why I feel that it’s bad reputation is so undeserved. You see, everyone thinks the world is dead, or sleeping. The secret is that it isn’t. The World is awake and humming under your feet. Things are growing and changing under the Earth, getting the seeds ready, making the roots stronger. The same thing is happening inside us at the same time. Winter is about reflection, about going deep inside of ourselves to iron out the kinks, about making changes on the inside.  We’re cooking up these changes, warming up to them in our bellys and getting ready to show them to the Universe. Everything that we brew inside of ourselves, the changes we make, the new directions we want to take,  all come from Winter reflections. We feel the cold on the outside, but we stay warm on the inside… Burning up with possibilities for our our little lives.We should learn to love Winter, because  it loves us. It reminds us to slow down a little and think about what we really want.  We should be thankful for it.

I know Joce left that night with a stomach full of food and a big smile, despite my ramblings. So, hopefully I helped ease a bit of her burden… If only for a night.

Also, excerpts from my life in the kitchen: 

Slow Cooker: "Stop putting stuff in me, I’m full up!"
Jupi: "Come on, it’s just a bit more chicken… Don’t be such a pansy"
Slow Cooker: (Barfs all over the counter)