Smoke Rings and Bittersweet Memories

"Bittersweet"

The smoke ring: wisping, ethereal, dreamily floating upwards like my drifting, wandering thoughts. 

Smoking in the golden age of Hollywood was considered classy and elegant. Masculine and or feminine. Cary Grant, Katherine Hepburn, James Dean, Lauren Bacall, and so many others. I still find it so. Those movies, black and white, people staring each other down. Taking a drag while composing their next thought. A pause before the biting remark, wit or wisdom ... definitely was a different time.

I grew up in a 70s household of wafting smoke clouds through the breakfast room, on the front porch, or the back deck. Mom never smoked anywhere else in the house though. Mom and her cigarettes. Dad and his cigars. It was a part of my upbringing. Ironically, we three kids never took it up besides a cigar or a joint here and there.

Mom would sit at her head of the kitchen table, back towards the kitchen so that she could see the breakfast room in front of her, the living room and front door beyond, and the dining room to the left. Like a Jewish Mother Don surveying her own la Kosher Nosh-tra, she would view us coming in from any part of the Wenonah house. 

Mom was all viewing, all knowing, with that single cigarette perched delicately in her small right hand. Her arm would be propped up, resting on her elbow. Taking a slow drag, hearing the sizzle of the tobacco, the ash would grow to record shattering lengths. My brother, sister and I taking bets on how long the ash could go ... an inch, two inches maybe before Mom would lightly tap the cigarette into her favorite crystal ashtray. I was always in the seat to her right, watching the long single trail of smoke rising up to the high Victorian ceiling.

If we came home late past curfew, we would try and sneak in the side door off the drive. There was Mom, sitting in the dark, save for the glowing end of that cigarette. Everything else pitch black. Being as quiet as a church mouse would not save one, for she was waiting, taking long drags in the darkness. The only light and movement seen being the glowing end of that cigarette growing with each drag before all hell would break lose.

I smoke cigars at this point in my life, usually when camping or hiking. I enjoy a good cigar with a Scotch, bourbon or a nice red, depending on my mood. As a twenty-something rambling through the palm and bougainvillea lined streets of Key West, I was first introduced to small Cohiba cigarillos.

I purchased Cohibas at a now shuttered Duval Street store named 'Cuba Cuba!'. They were the perfect introduction into the world of cigars. I have tried many others but still like to pick up a tin at the local cigar store near where I live just for old times' sake, reliving those memories of my youth. When camping, I pick up rustic style Backwoods, evoking college fraternity memories.

On the flip side, smoking showed me the frustration, agony and eventual death it can cause to a family. I remember my brother stealing Mom's cigarettes to try and make her stop. We would also break them and put them back in the pack. Mom would show her anger and we'd retreat. We'd hide her matches; hide the ashtrays. We'd get pamphlets and brochures on the dangers of smoking and leave them in the living room, the kitchen, wherever she might see them. 

Mom would pledge to stop. She'd stop here and there but always take it up again. It was a struggle for her. I truly recognize that now. We finally stopped trying and arguing about it. I realized she would only give it up when she was ready. But by that time 12 years ago, it was too late. She had developed emphysema and lung cancer, progressing onto her brain and eventually her liver. 


Mom's smoking contributed to her death along with a horrible car accident in January of 2009. Both caused my mother's already weakened state to give up at too young an age. My lifelong dichotomy is knowing this but still enjoying my cigars. I have arguments which constantly swirl in my head over it. I look at the drugs which I tried and gave up in my 20s. I've never had a smoking addiction. I now also limit my alcohol consumption.

My only true vice is caffeine. I guess enjoying a cigar while watching football or camping is the least of my worries. But I still have guilt over it. My mother's life in one way or another revolved around smoking from the 60's to her passing. I don't have anger over it anymore, just sadness. And yet another conversation with my therapist... 😏


BLOGGER's NOTE:
Comments on the dangers of smoking will be deleted. We all know them and I've addressed this above. If you don't get the angle of this post, I cannot help you understand it.