Smoking is probably one of the dumbest things I do. My hands smell putrid and my throat scratches with a guilty feeling. It’s a moment snatched from the present with a cost that is too horrific to imagine.

Someone asked my why I do it, what it feels like. It feels like clarity. It feels like time slows to standstill and there is silence in the world. It is a cursed meditation. They should invent thinking without smoking. 

In the night when you cup the flame and gently caress your doom to life, it feels like a triumph. There’s a Norwegian song called “Har du fyr” which means “Do you have flame” or “Do you have a light?” It could mean do you have fire? Do you have lights that lead you home?

When you ask a fellow smoker if they have a light you ask for a favor. Can you help me but also can we be in this space together? I remember cigarettes at sunsets, cigarettes in snow under northern lights, cigarettes in the afternoon in the shade and in all those moments I wanted time to stop.

Eventually I will have to stop and just learn how to take in those moments. Sometimes you have to leave things behind for the better.

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Posted also on X/Twitter: https://x.com/wayfaring_tim/status/1805366616084955369