Todays rambling thoughts, hope you don't mind!
Sitting on my porch blaring music through my earbuds, smoking my weekly cigarette, drinking my coffee. Realizing it is so rare now, to listen to music with no other stimulation. Just staring out at the road, looking at the plants I let die in the first frost. For a moment I feel like a child again, ironic given the cigarette, and I was never allowed coffee as a kid. The air is cold, my fingers are numb, ash fell into my coffee, but this is the most peaceful I've felt in a long time. The music and the cigarette remind me of my brother. He smoked. I think he smoked American Spirits, but I prefer Camels, like our dad. I don't think he wanted to pick up smoking. Or drinking. Or the rest. I can still remember the smoke filled house, the embers that would fly in the wind and hit me instead of going out the window of the car, thinking, I'll never smoke because it gives you cancer, or COPD, or causes you to accidentally burn your kids leg with the cigarette while helping them get in the bathtub. Smoking is a bad habit, but now I enjoy a cigarette here and there. It makes me feel like a kid again, like we are all still close, in that smoke filled house. It smells like not knowing things wouldn't always be this way, not knowing you wouldn't always be here. I worry if I smoke I'll get sick and die, but what's the point? We all die someway, unexpected or expected, one day we will all be trying to get just one more breath of air, and be denied by our own bodies. I cringe away from smoking too often, but I drink fairly often, that's killing me, too. Besides, I only have a cigarette once a week or so. Sure, it's worse than no cigarettes, but I can't believe it's giving me hypertension or laying the groundwork for a stroke to take me out in twenty years. And so what if it did? Then I would be with you. And maybe that's how I should look at it. I am on a path that leads to you. I've been thinking every year that goes by is a year further from you, but in reality, each year, or month, or day, is a day closer to you. That's the only way I'll reach you now. And everyone enjoys something bad here and there. All of my friends love a drunk cigarette, and I'm happy to supply. While we are smoking the cigarette, I think I enjoy it for a different reason. I love the smell because for a moment it feels like maybe you're with me. You were always with me in our smoke filled childhood, and now you're nowhere. I don't know how that can be, so I search for you in every crevice of my life. A few bad habits, that only bring our time apart shorter, don't seem so bad, if I can feel close to you. I think you're here with me now, sharing this cigarette. Do they allow cigarettes where you are? Surely you can smoke in heaven and not get cancer. I hope you're enjoying yourself, but please, don't forget about me.
