In The Company of Women

The other night I was snuggling up to Brent (and by snuggling up I mean pressing my ice cold hands against his back, trying to steal some of the furnace heat that men always have cranking), complaining about how cold I was and wondering why this winter has been going on for five million years already. 

It’s the middle of February, but there’s still so. much. winter. left. Sometimes I talk to people who are all, the worst is behind us, I hope I can get at least one more skiing weekend in, and I’m like did you literally just move here? It’s fucking February in the northeast, there’s going to be more snow. Hopefully no more big storms, but I’m not packing the shovel away yet. And I’ll be bundling up every day for the time being because even without the snow it’s effing fuh-reezing.

Bitter temps, icy wind, constant runny nose; it’s no wonder I’ve been struck with a case of the serious winter blues. I’m lackluster about working out, off the wall with chocolate cravings, and can barely muster up the strength to switch on the electric blanket before crawling into bed as soon as I get home. The indifference has extended to work, where I’m lazy and uninspired, feeling like I’ve hit a plateau I didn’t even know I was moving towards. 

In an effort to get some sense of purpose and motivation back, I’ve been reading whatever I can find on start-ups. I’m not looking to open my own place anytime soon, but I’m always interested to see what other people do when they hit a wall. Restaurants are hella risky and come with all kinds of statistics like, over half of all new restaurants fail within the first year, so that makes for really encouraging reading. 

In all this research, I stumbled upon In the Company of Women. 

A compilation of interviews with over 100 women. There are photographs of the women alongside their interview, many of them getting two or three pages, accompanied by pictures of their work. They are writers and comedians; artists and interior designers; chefs and restaurateurs. They are black and white and Asian and Latina, young and old and all ages in between. A patchwork of women who embraced their strengths and pursued their passions. 

I checked it out of the library, as I do with everything, and I’ve been paging through it every day, sometimes reading rapidly and trying to take it all in, other times gently leafing through and seeing what catches my eye. There aren’t a whole lot of books I feel the need to own, to have at the ready when the mood strikes, to display on a shelf -or more often than not- nearby on my nightstand for when those winter blues set in, but this book is one of them. 

Whether you’re happy with your current career path, or pondering the “what ifs,” this book is a great reference. It’s page after page of badass women who bucked the system and did things their way. They looked opposition squarely in the eye and didn’t back down. They are strong and curious visionaries who made a place for themselves where there previously wasn’t one.

All through junior high and high school I had pictures of *N Sync and Justin Timberlake tacked up on my walls. I’m tempted to do that now with the pages from this book, surrounding myself with these new idols. They certainly have better hair and cuter outfits.