Ode to Smoking

I smoked on and off for twenty years. I loved my cigarettes. “Merit Ultra Lite please. One carton.” I smoked a lot. Two to four packs a day. I really didn’t like those people who could join you for a cigarette when you were having drinks, and then they went home and didn’t smoke another cigarette for a week. It’s in the genes or not, and I hate that about my genes. Give me one cigarette and I’m hooked. One chocolate chip cookie and I’m hooked. And so on.

I quit smoking twice. The first time was through Smokenders. My sister Leslie told me about it. Leslie is very special and never does things the way others do.

“You have to go. I’m sure it’s going to work. I’m only in week two, but it’s great.”

“What’s it like there? Who is in your group?”

“Well, I don’t actually know. I sent my secretary and she takes notes and brings them back to me.”

“What?! Does Haley smoke?”

“Well no she doesn’t, but don’t start with me. She really loves going.”

Having gone through it, I can tell you the room is like a major fire whose smoke hasn’t had anywhere to go and just sits in the room. The thought of that poor girl in there for two hours a week for eight weeks is really beyond me. I had trouble sitting in it, and I was a smoker. For sure Haley did not love going. She’s probably getting a lung x ray right now. The long and the short of it is that I quit and Leslie did not.

Smokenders is pretty easy. The only thing that was disgusting was the butt jar. You put your last two weeks of cigarette butts in a jar, add a little water, and if ever the urge should attack, you were supposed to open the jar and smell it. Not so much. I think I threw my butt jar away after week three of post quit date. It was in the back of my closet and I felt about the jar the way someone must feel about keeping their loved ones ashes in the back of their closet when the loved one’s last wish was to be spread across the Pacific where his boat went down in World War II, and you just haven’t had the time to go there. It weighed on me heavily.

I don’t remember why I started again, but I remember my aunt was visiting and her cigarette looked so fabulous dangling from her red-nailed hand that I picked one up and smoked it. My aunt is very exotic. She wears about 100 bangles on her arm, and has long expressive fingers that were extended even further with the cig at the end of them. Fabulous. Anyway, that was it. Hooked in three minutes and back to four packs a day.

Then a few years later I got pregnant. Yes, I smoked when I was pregnant. Sue me. Sarah might sue me later in life, but frankly, she doesn’t seem worse for wear from it, and she has never smoked – a cigarette anyway – and was the reason I quit the second time. She wouldn’t quit nagging me. And being the perfect role model mother with a cigarette dangling from your mouth is difficult.

The second and final quit was done through the patch. It was pretty easy I think. I can’t really remember. It was about fifteen years ago, and I haven’t thought about it in a long, long time. Last night, I met a new friend for dinner and we were finding out about each other and he mentioned he had been a smoker. We both lamented the loss, the friend for all seasons that is not longer at the end of our fingers during the good times, the bad times and just before heading to bed.

I told him that if someone is smoking (so rare to find one these days), I always stand down wind from them and take in that second hand smoke like it was a serum to stop aging forever. If the smoke trail moves, I move with it. I follow it around the person and I’m sure they have looked at me in wonderment asking themselves why I am swaying and shuffling to and fro as they gesture magnificently with their cigarette perched at the end of their hand. Sigh. Just writing it makes me yearn to head to the streets to find a smoking personage to follow.

If they told me I had a month left, the first thing I would do is buy a carton of cigarettes. Sad but true. At least I’m honest.