"I'm going to take a time out from reading your blog."
WHAT?!? Oh no! What did I say?
Seeing the concern in my face she continued "Not because I don't love reading it because I do. It's funny and important and cathartic. But I think you're holding back because of me and I'm going to give you a little space, to say whatever you need to."
Didn't I tell you I have the most spectacular mother?
My mind abruptly raced with the stories that were too scandalous for maternal consumption. Such as the time my clumsy, goody two-shoes accidentally licked a line of the bad shit off my fingers at a party because I hadn't been paying attention and thought it was salt. (Sorry I ruined your drugs!) Yeesh. I'm the most harmless, clean-living doofus you'll ever meet. I used to worry this made me dull, but no longer. I like knowing my limits, not waking up sick, and looking relatively healthy. Now if only I knew how to knit or actually enjoyed running...and I didn't from time to time desperately miss cigarettes.
I said smoked crab, damn it!
I learned about cigarettes from my paternal grandfather, who also introduced me to bourbon and taught me to play (5-card stud) poker all before I was ten years old. We crammed a lot of living into our very short time together. Grandfather was an epic smoker, to the point where the smell of cigarettes and toast, (which we had for breakfast every morning) has become this hugely comforting sense-memory trigger for me. My old roommate, F, was a heavy smoker and also liked to have toast in the mornings. This is probably why he couldn't get me to leave his room, not only because I loved sitting on his sofa, drinking coffee and talking, but the room smelled like my childhood summer.
I was never a heavy smoker, ever. I listened to the warnings in school, and went in fully armed with the facts. I know cigarettes are bad, they are gross, they will cut your life span dramatically. At this point, the knowledge is out there, and anyone who chooses to pick up a cigarette does so at their own risk.
But then I close my eyes, and I can remember everything. Cigarette smell mixed with toast in the morning. Cigarette deeply ingrained into woolly, scratchy, flannel shirts as I hug him goodnight. Cigarettes and leather riding in his car. Cigarettes and sea air as we go on trips around Rhode Island. I was so young when he died, there weren't real adult things to cling to, so it was basic senses, feelings and smells that I held dear.
I smoked occaisonally through school, before giving it up for good. I loved the social aspect of it, but not the fact that it affected my participation in sports. It's hard to balance the cigarette-and-coffee part with the classic-American-sporty-girl side of myself. It doesn't mean that on agonizingly stressful days I don't ache for a cig, or that someone else's won't smell like a happy memory, but I made a choice (I choose air!) and it was the right one for me.
