A toast, in memory of Marlboro Reds.

My decision to quit smoking did not arise primarily from health or financial convictions. Rather, I didnt want to walk to base to buy a fresh pack. To Laziness, I attribute this sacrifice. By the time I had the energy to pursue some smokes I had been off nicotine for a whole day, and considering that a significant head start, I decided to run with it. I was up for a fight. The first couple of days I confined myself to my room, sleeping through most of the physical withdrawals. If I wasnt sleeping I was crunching through a carrot or an apple and reading "Still Life with Woodpecker" by Tom Robbins. The book is, "sort of a love story that takes place inside a pack of Camel cigarettes." so I found it fitting.

Robbins writes, "Three of the four elements are shared by all creatures, but fire was a gift to humans alone. Smoking cigarettes is as intimate as we can become with fire without immediate excruciation. Every smoker is an embodiment of Prometheus, stealing fire from the gods and bringing it on back home. We smoke to capture the primordial spark, to feed on the marrow of the volcano. Its not the tobacco were after but the fire. When we smoke, we are performing a version of the fire dance, a ritual as ancient as lightning. Does that mean that chain smokers are religious fanatics? You must admit there's a similarity. The lung of the smoker is a naked virgin thrown as a sacrifice into the godfire."

I can see those words etched into the headstone of my dearly departed addiction. But before I am tempted to revive it, Robbins continues,

"You found a key to wisdom in the Camel pack...I mean, it spells it right out. CHOICE.  A persons looking for a simple truth to live by, there it is. CHOICE. To refuse to passively accept what we've been handed down by nature or society, but to choose for ourselves. CHOICE. That's the difference between emptiness and substance, between a life actually lived and a wimpy shadow cast on an office wall."

Im not quite sure why I quit smoking. Cancer and cost are two logical reasons and sure, I wasn't up for a walk across town for the cheap American cigarettes, but something else is there, something deeper and cleaner. I think I just wanted to change up my life, to shake my world, to prove to myself that I was alive and capable of change. and now that I think about it, thats probably why I started smoking in the first place.