I haven’t been feeling so hot ever since we got off the plane from Florida. I really love traveling. But since I moved back to the USA from Europe, it seems I get sick each time I get off of a plane. (I keep telling myself it’s because this body is meant for Europe.) I’d started taking these immune boosters with Vitamin C and Echinacea, but I forgot them last week. Today is the first day I’m starting to feel somewhat normal again.
Yesterday I went out on the front porch while my Dad had a smoke. He was mesmerized by this birdie that was perched on our telephone wire. Dad was smiling as if he’d long ago made friends with this bird, which would be natural as he often takes smoke breaks on the porch. Sweet birdie was singing four or five totally different summer songs! I couldn’t believe they all came from one little birdie beak. But I couldn’t even hear the music until Dad stopped me and helped me listen. (As good Daddys do.)
I then called to my Mama, “Come listen to the birdie who sings in stereo!”
I’m jealous of how smokers live a rhythm of momentary pauses throughout the day. I think this is one of the ways God can redeem a nicotine addiction. It’s strange how the smoke in their lungs is so dangerous, and yet the simple exhale of their outdoor pauses is so dangerously life-giving.
I need to start taking some pseudo-smoke breaks.
(Birds photo by Meredith Dancause)
That is the best post I’ve ever read on smoking.
Momentary pauses. Good stuff.
Agent B,
I considered calling this post “Thank you for smoking,” but since I still haven’t seen that movie, I stopped myself. My need-to-watch movie list is growing embarrassingly long.
Movies you should see [in no particular order]:
1. Love Song for Bobby Long
2. Thankyou for Smoking
3. Lonesome Jim
4. The Royal Tennenbaums.
Arianna dear,
Thank you for the list. I know not #1 or #3, but #4 is one of my favorite movies of all time. Great soundtrack.
Yeah Elliot Smith! I just caught up on your blog- that 5K sounds like a blast! And honeysuckle! I would like to run a marathon, eventually.
And what you mean about those smoke breaks- I was just reading something a little like that from Annie Dillard last night. Not smoke breaks, but being conscious. I’ll send you the quote.
“This is it, I think, this is it, right now, the present, this empty gas station, here, this western wind, this tang of coffee on the tongue, and I am patting the puppy, I am watching the mountain. And the second I verbalize this awareness in my brain, I cease to see the mountain or feel the puppy.”
it keeps going… if you want the context, it’s at the bottom of page 78 in Pilgrim at Tinker Creek… Annie Dillard.
Cari,
Did I inadvertantly allude to our Elliott (oh, R.I.P., boy)? Probably…as I’ve been listening to his just posthumously released record.
Thanks so much for those Annie quotes. You are stellar.