My friend and co-worker JC is a struggling smoker. The kind who really wants to quit, sometimes does for weeks at a time, but ends up smoking again for one reason or another. Several months ago, we established that I had no problem with her smoking while we drive together – my car or her car.
It was only yesterday that I realized why it doesn’t bother me at all, and I rather enjoy the smell of cigarette smoke.
I am not a cigarette smoker. I smoked when I was a kid, from around age 10 to about age 21 when I entered my first relationship. I was never truly addicted to smoking so quitting was a simple choice, strongly recommended by my partner at the time. My biggest struggle about not smoking was drinking coffee. I hadn’t realized that I drank coffee while I smoked, and for a short time I had to give up coffee too.
Both my older brothers smoke, one just once in a while, the other as a gripping habit still unchanged today.
My father did not smoke cigarettes as a habit, but I knew he’d smoked at some point in his life and I always encouraged him to smoke a pipe because I loved the smell of his tobacco. Many of my “daughter” Christmas presents to him were pipes, pipe holders, lighters and the like to support this behavior, but he never stayed with it.
I remember as a child when the whole family ate meals together, we sat at a bar between our kitchen and dining room. My father and two brothers sat across the dining room side of the bar. I sat at the end and my mother sat on the inside, the kitchen side. I have a strong memory of an after meal ritual – I’d finish eating and go sit on my mother's lap. She’d eat her last bites of food holding me, then, after she finished eating, she’d light up a cigarette. She smoked it while I sat in her lap. Sometimes, at breakfast I suppose, she’d have a cup of coffee too.
Cigarettes and coffee are the scent of my mother - of nurturing safety.
And now that we're feeling all warm and fuzzy about the smell of cigarettes, this is where I’ll mention that both my parents died from lung cancer. I can’t talk about smoking without that bit of information.
I can't stand cigarette smoke and refuse to let anyone smoke in my house, including my mom. She's always been a heavy smoker from about 16 or 17 years of age, and she's 71 now. Crazy.
ReplyDeleteDad smoked a pipe occasionally, or a cigar, and still will smoke a cigar once in a long while, but that's it.
I never took up the habit myself, it always seemed a dumb thing to do, even when I was child. So I was lucky in that regard.
I don't know what laws are like in the US, especially from state to state, but here in Ontario you cannot smoke in any store or restaurant or bar, and smoking is banned a certain distance from some entrances, from bus shelters, etc. There actually are very few places for smokers to go, at least in public!
I was lucky never took up that habit and like Kim I can't take the smell. I can't take the smell of strong perfume either, but that is a completely different topic. Logic tells me that putting smoke down your lungs can't be healthy. I remember not too many years ago forest fires being very prevalent, and the STRONG smoke choking me.
ReplyDeletexoxoxo