It snowed last night. the roads are covered in a delicate white blanket. The branches of the trees are dusted in white. Noises are muffled in the snow. The air thicker, heavier, as if the cold has tempered its capacity to carry sound.

And it promises to get colder.

Sometimes, I wish the weather just wouldn’t keep its promises!

But, the weather is the weather. there’s little I can do to change it. All I can do is dress for it.

So, if that’s the case, why do we humans spend so much time grumbling about something we cannot change?

When I worked at the homeless shelter, the weather was not only a common subject matter for clients and staff, it also often acted as a draw for the media.

It was inevitable. A weatherman would announce an imminent drop into a sub-arctic coldspell sweeping in from the north and a reporter would call. “How are you getting ready for the cold snap?” he or she would ask.

“By doing what we do every day, 365 days of the year,” I’d reply. “Doing everything we can to keep clients safe.”

“Can I bring a camera down and interview you. Maybe talk to some of the clients?”

And they’d come down, cameraman/woman in tow, set up outside in the driveway, or sometimes on the second floor day area, and ‘ask away’.

Now, don’t get me wrong.  Media play an important role in helping agencies connect with the general populace. Media help get the message out. We must all take action to change the face of homelessness in our city.

But our fascination with the weather in our northern climes doesn’t help us adjust to ‘what is’. It just keeps us focussing on how we’d like it to be — which is always warmer — unless of course it’s a summer heat wave and then all we can talk about is how we’re all hoping for a break in the heat.

Yesterday, on my way for a coffee shop a block away from the office where I’m working, I took a shortcut down a back lane and passed a couple huddled together around a shopping cart that was parked against a wall of one of the buildings lining the alleyway. They shared a cigarette and something in a brown paper bag, chatting and laughing together as I approached. They saw me coming, and turned away from me either in an effort to avoid eye contact or perhaps to hide the brown paper bag. I carried on.

On my way back, I stopped to say hello. I’d bought a couple of extra coffees and muffins and asked if they’d like them.

“We don’t need charity,” the woman quickly responded.

“It’s not charity,” I replied. “It’s one neighbour helping another. It’s cold out here and I thought maybe a coffee would help warm you up.”

The man eyed the cardboard tray of coffee and muffins I held in my hands. “Is there sugar and real cream?” he asked.

I smiled. “Yes. I brought extra.”

“I miss sugar and cream,” he replied, reaching out for the tray.

The woman looked at me suspiciously. “We’re not neighbours,” she said.

“Yes we are,” I replied, handing over the cardboard tray to the man. “I work in that building, just down there.” And I pointed to the office building I was heading towards further down the lane. “And I’ve seen you out here before.”

“Ya know, they don’t got sugar at the Drop-In,” he said, naming the shelter where I used to work. He perched the tray on top of a box in their shopping cart, pulled out a cup and wrapped both his hands around it as if collecting up its warmth.

He put it back into the box, picked up several sugar packs, tore them open and poured them all in at once to the now unlidded cup of coffee. His hands were weathered. His fingernails dirty. They looked cold.

The woman watched the sugar spill out into the coffee. She reached for the other cup on the tray.

“That still doesn’t make us neighbours,” she insisted.

I smiled. “True. But it doesn’t mean I can’t offer a couple of strangers a cup of coffee.”

“We gotta a place,” she said as she too poured several pouches of sugar into her coffee. “We just come down here…” and she paused as she thought of her response. “For the change of scenery,” she finished her sentence with a laugh.

They both laughed uproariously. I laughed with them.

And walked away.

“Thanks for the coffee,” they both called to my retreating back.

“You’re welcome,” I called back.

And I thought about what else I could do to help out my neighbours. Maybe carry a couple of pairs of mitts in my purse. Some clean pairs of socks. Lip balm to give away.

We are all neighbours and there’s always something we can do to help eachother out.