It seems winter is upon us as the winds race through the tunnels of downtown DC’s architectural perfection for keeping currents alive from block to block. I’m told the cold rain and umbrella-flipping wind of nearly 48 hours is to be blamed on hurricane Ida. I tend to be more forgiving. Ida’s not to blame-- it’s the bastard rain and wind, why bring Ida into it? Like most things this system will pass, just like my cold or any other week in which something happens that is not ideal.
No matter how gracious I’m becoming about dealing with things that irk me, especially things that have nothing to do with the weather, there is one thing I really can’t stand and have never been able to tolerate since I was a toddler. In fact, I’m finding myself being extremely offended by it recently. That is the act of smoking.
This puts me at odds with many of my friends and I don’t care if people smoke, but what has me really burning is a lack of etiquette—smoke and kill your own self, but don’t blow it in my face.
While waiting beneath a cramped bus stop, rain pouring, we are shoulder to shoulder in a confined space, one person each day lights up, choking me out of the shelter. I’d rather be wet and wind whipped and freezing than stand next to a guy who is going to blow his shit in my face. Should I have to compromise a dry space or inhale what you are blowing on me? I find this extremely rude. When cold and rainy days come, there they are, one step beyond the revolving door of my office building so I have to leave through a gauntlet of nastiness while they stay dry beneath the awning, blowing remnants of tobacco poison on us as we leave. Is this fair? Is my own judgment of people who smoke fair? Don’t we all have our faults or perhaps, addictions?
I realize the law in most places has put smokers out on the stoops of restaurants and bars, but the fact of the matter remains—smoking kills. Second hand intake, seen often in children of smokers, have reduced lung capacity and inhibited breathing patterns into adulthood and beyond. I have compassion for people who suffer from addiction, more than anyone knows. Still I can’t be anything but running when a lit butt comes near me.
Nearly everyone in my dad’s family smoked and in the end, lung cancer was the single greatest killer that wiped the family out. I’ll never forget one great uncle I liked a great deal, someone my father loved, who in the end had to speak through a voice box in his throat after his larynx was removed. That’s a sad and painful ending.
But that’s not what made me dislike smoking. When I was very little and my Nana cared for me during the days my mama worked, she smoked. Not too often, but when we were in her car, and she had a classic big boat of a vehicle and all of the inside reeked of it. I don’t even remember having a car seat, but hey, this is late ‘70’s early ‘80’s we’re talking about…What I do remember is loving her but hating the smoke and when I was able to say “Eeew, cigrits,” she stopped. Cold Turkey. That was that. I will always love her for that. What makes it even more amazing is seeing the advertisements during that era (one example shown below), where blowing in someone's face was being branded to make people think that was a turn-on. Yikes.
Here is a poem expressing the way I felt and still feel about polluting the air and lungs from smoking. But I think it applies to other things as well. I love how the meaning of poems can morph and take on multiple meanings as we move through life.
Stop
Put out your cigarette
You are choking me
Extinguish the smoking fire
You are burning a hole in my integrity.
Rhythmically you tap the tray
Letting cinders fall about,
Purge those notes from my soul
Your music I can do without.
You are fading away
Sucked up your chimney stack at night,
I can see your ghost in the fog
Following me into sleep and sight.
Please stop the sinister stuff
Smoldering sonorously in my ears
I am going deaf.
No comments:
Post a Comment