On Smoking

I realize that smoking cigarettes is currently, sociologically unpopular.  I also realize that cigarettes kill (numerically) airplanes full of people on a daily basis.  But … there is something really, truly aesthetically pleasing about smoking a cigarette.  There is something quite lovely about the sulphur on a match igniting and subsequently meeting the end of an untainted, white tube of tobacco, followed by the sudden, sweet rush of smoke into one’s mouth and lungs.  It’s jarring, and then consequently enormously relaxing to pull the smoke in through the lips, to treasure it, then to expel it back again into the fresh air.  (Smoking outside is the key; indoors, the smoke is too concentrated and toxic.  And yes, I see the obvious oxymoron or juxtaposition or whatever you want to label it.)

The key is to smoke a cigarette when 1) no one else is watching, or 2) to smoke with people who will not judge you.   Finding these two conditions is, for me, quite difficult, as I live with children who have been taught that smoking is bad, and I also live in society where, well, smoking is bad.

I smoked cigarettes for most of my adolescence, and then into adulthood.  I quit when my son, who was then about 10 months old, picked up my pack of cigarettes from the table leading out to my deck (I was only smoking outside by then, because secondhand smoke is obnoxious and rude and harmful to others) and starting eating them.  I came into the kitchen about 30 seconds too late, and he was vomiting up MY cigarettes, which I had left within reach of a newly walking person.  I quit immediately, cold turkey.

That was about 16 years ago.  It was only recently that I tried less chemically-laced cigarettes, and found that (in moderation) cigarettes are quite lovely.  I’m not endorsing the stank-mouth, foul-smelling lifestyle I once ignorantly embraced; I’m just saying that there is a time and a place for a trail of smoke wafting off into the distance and a few consciously-pulled drags from a cigarette.  That TIME and PLACE needs to be carefully timed, or else the cigarette-smoking experience is ruined.

Here are the rules:

·         None of my younger children can be present, imminently present, or even accidently/potentially present.  They make me paranoid and self-conscious, and thus ruin the aesthetics. 

·         There must be a cocktail within reach.

·         I must have food in my stomach.

·         Ideally, I can call someone on the phone, who I would never in a million years be caught smoking in front of.

As you can see, these limitations severely hinder my ability to smoke (which is good) and also make the experience rare, satisfying, and personal. 

In a day and age when everything is bad for you and neuroses is the norm, it’s the little things that can make one moment a celebration of both lung capacity and social rebellion.