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2/03/2006 09:08:00 PM
Smoker
Apparently I buy a pack of Marlboro Lights and a $1.99 candy-colored Bic lighter when a relationship ends. And then I guess I keep those cigarettes until the next one ends. And so forth. I remember sitting with Maria in the parking lot of a Catholic church in Arlington, VA, having just come from a geek-chic dive bar where we sat holed up in a booth with Belgiun beers and huddled over our glasses speaking of the wrongs boys have done. Tonight I went to an improv show with an ex and then afterwards, felt inexplicably but inexorably called to get a cup of coffee. And then, sipping said coffe while walking down the crackling Friday night Belmont sidewalk, I saw someone cup his body against a brown brick building to light a cigarette, and then walk off looking poetic and thoughtful. So I was thusly inspired to do the same, and turned on my heels to stop in a corner store and ask for a pack of Marlboro Lights. I chose a lighter, too, so I could smoke one immediately, the exact same make and model of lighter that Maria and I bought at the 7-11 in Arlington that night, and which I still use to light candles, and sometimes other things, the other things being a relic of my days with said ex. And as soon as I stepped outside into the cold February night, I ripped open the cellophane and for a moment they seemed naked, they'd been asleep, and here I was, coming in and stirring up their slumber. But I pulled one out, and remembered so vividly the struggle I had to work that first lighter, the one I bought with Maria, which was powder blue. My new one was orange, and I chose it because orange represents something, I think, or at least says something, I am more awake now and more a sunrise/sunset kind of girl, and I soak up the details now, and things appear to me in shocking colors of orange and flame. So I lit the lighter on the first try. Maria was not there to whisper, "You've really got to want it," and I didn't need to be reminded anyway. I wanted it. So I lit it, and it didn't take, because of the wind, and I tried again, and I tried again, and finally I cupped myself closer to the sweet brown brick wall and the end lit into embers, and there we had it. Somehow now this was a poem, and I could easily imagine myself in Paris, and smoking was like I had been a smoker forever. My fingers weren't thinking, so they held it naturally, and I didn't analyze how I breathed in or out, I just breathed, and it was the best damn cigarette I think there ever could have been.