Cigarettes and Confessions

To my Dearest Mother:

On this Day of Mothers, I am going to gift you an unusual but hopefully appreciated gift: the correction of a lie I once told to you. A confession, if you will. However, I also want to provide some backstory, so that when it comes time for all to be revealed, I may perhaps be offered a modicum of sympathy and understanding.

Our story begins on a beautiful summer day in June of 2013. I was 17 years old, and working my first job: a server, as it were, at an upscale seniors home. The premise of the job was simple. We arrived, decked out in our black dress pants, white, company-provided dress shirt, and a rather strangling company-provided black bow tie. Upon arriving, we entered the kitchen: the domain of two angry and formidable chefs. These two chefs scared the absolute hell out of me: I lived in constant fear of one day being the poor suck to mess up the order of one of our dear, rich seniors, and henceforth face the wrath of said chefs. It was not a good look to have to re-make the meal of one who paid so much to acquire said meal in the first place.

Each shift, we workers convened into the kitchen, where we lined up -army style - and the chefs - sergeant style - barked at us the supper options of the day. There were usually three different meals for the seniors to choose from, with various add-ons to each. The meals were recited to one table at a time, the members of the table asked for all types of specifications, I returned to the kitchen, reciting everything under my breath, and got into line to face the chefs. Once face to face with my greatest anxiety in human form, I squeaked out the orders, often being told sharply to speak up. The orders were prepared, and I placed them on a tray, set the tray on my shoulder, and left the kitchen to serve them to the seniors. Most days, I did not mess up any orders. Either that, or the ones I messed up went to those blessed folks who were kind and understanding. On the few occasions that I did make a mistake, and that mistake was received by one of the more disgruntled seniors, I would be loudly admonished by the plaintive in question, and sent back to the kitchen to repair my mistake. Here, I was usually met with a stony silence by the chefs, as they slammed down their giant knives, making a meal they should only have had to make once. I often wondered if they wished that it was me underneath the knife, instead of someone’s steak-cut-into-exactly-seventeen-pieces.

After the Great Battle of The Supper was over, it was time for dessert. This was a time of calm for me. While the desert options rotated nightly, they were still all pre-prepared, and no modifications were allowed. You had several options, and if you did not want them: well then, tough luck old man. But I should offer these seniors some leniency in my criticism: they were generally well-pleased with the desserts, as most people generally are. Dessert time was also a time of calm for the chefs: supper being over, they were afforded a break before beginning to prep for the next day of unnecessary demands. And dessert time is when I first saw it happen.

I had to run back into the kitchen to grab some more mint ice cream for my tray. The chefs were on their break, the other workers were all out serving, and so for a moment, it was just me and the kitchen. I used this opportunity for a small moment of stillness: there was a door in the kitchen leading to a little outside patio, fenced in by tall bushes, with an old table and three very weather worn, rickety old chairs. I had never been out there, but I knew sometimes people would sit out there after their shifts and eat some of the leftover food the seniors had deemed unworthy of their consumption. The door had a window that I enjoyed looking out of: the evening sun would peacefully float in through the glass, and I’d often see birds flitting about in the bushes. But today, when I afforded myself a moment to look out into the peace of nature, I saw something new: one of the chefs, just settling into a chair and lifting a cigarette to her lips.

While this seems odd to admit, I had never really seen anyone smoke before. At 16, I had a lived a life quite sheltered from things of this nature. I mean, I’m sure I’d seen people smoke. But I’d always looked away, as if it was something to be ashamed of looking at: like it was some scandalous, horrible thing. I’d never before truly observed someone smoking; seen how the whole thing - mysterious and wondrous to me – actually worked.

The chef was about ¾ turned away from the window, so that I could see her side profile, but did not feel in any immediate danger of her turning around to face me. And I stood still, watching her, mesmerized. I watched her lean forward in her chair, put the flame of her lighter to the tip of her cigarette, and take a long breath inward. I watched as she leaned contentedly back into the chair, settling into its worn folds, her shoulders relaxing as the cigarette continued to slowly trace out smoke, curling and dancing in the air. I watched as she again put it to her lips, and with the smallest of contended smiles that I could just barely glimpse from my vantage point, took another peaceful breath of smoke from the cigarette.

At this moment, a co-worker burst into the kitchen, startling me sharply out of my observation. I whipped around and stared at him blankly, shocked by the suddenness of it. He looked at me oddly. “Uh, Meghan? You grab that ice cream yet? I think your table is wondering if you like, dropped dead in the kitchen or something.”

I apologized clumsily, grabbed the extra bowls of mint ice cream and practically sprinted back out. I finished my rounds with the dessert, the seniors ambled out of the dining room, and us workers cleared tables, cleaned them, vacuumed the rug, and set the tables for tomorrow’s breakfast. During this time, when the dining room was empty of seniors, my coworkers and I always chatted away about this and that, but today but I was mute, lost in my thoughts. All I could think about was the woman, and the cigarette. A woman who, hours before, had been nothing but an incarnation of anger and fear to me, was now transformed into an object of highest interest. She had seemed so perfectly human, so perfectly at peace and in her element, sitting out there amongst the high shrubs and the birds, smoke lightly swirling around her as the sun illuminated its waving patterns. I felt sudden guilt for my previous assumption that her entire existence revolved around being angry at teenagers about food. Her face out in the sun had seemed kind, and soft. And then there was The Cigarette.

What, exactly, was a cigarette? I knew from extensive do-not-smoke programs in elementary school that smoking was objectively disgusting, bad, and would kill you. Phrases like “kissing a smoker is like licking an ashtray” remained very clear in my mind. If only kissing a smoker was like licking an ashtray, then what was actually smoking? Like eating the ash in an ashtray? I had no desire to consume ash; the thought was revolting. And I’d seen the list of ingredients they put in cigarettes. Did I understand what any of them were? No. But there were lots of words, and they were big, long words, words that seemed Definitively Bad. Smoking is bad, I told myself. It kills people. You can become addicted for life after one cigarette. No, not even one cigarette – even just a puff from one can be a death sentence. Your teeth will go yellow. Your hair will fall out. They’ll have to cut a hole in your throat just to breath, and no one will ever love you.

Yet, despite all these teachings and warnings I paraded around in my mind, trying to get the idea of the cigarette out of my thoughts, the cigarette remained. It appeared that, perhaps, the cigarette was so insidious and evil that you didn’t even have to have one puff in order to be addicted. Apparently, all it took was seeing one chef enjoy a peaceful, after supper cigarette, and I was lost forever.

Mother, you were once a smoker – long before I came alone. When I found that out, it scandalized me deeply. It was not the version of you that I knew. But at the same time, it piqued my interest. What was it about them that had a hold over you, back then? What did it feel like to smoke? And what did it feel like to quit? Was it very difficult? Did you go through withdrawal? The negative aspects of the cigarette were just as interesting to me as the possible positive ones. All of the feelings associated with the cigarette were feelings I had never felt before, and I have this insidious urge to experience all emotions and experiences, whether negative or positive – in the same way someone would collect stamps. I want to own them all, and be able to claim that I, Meghan, have experienced the full spectrum of human emotion.

I think you are similar, Mother. I think you also seek out experience, I think you also have this insatiable curiosity about every odd and end this earth has to offer. I think that you passed this on to me. And I think that, despite all your warnings and your mostly successful attempts to shelter me and have me live a considerably more straight-edged youth than yours, that this nature passed down from you to me will always be stronger than the false nature you tried to impose on me.

We used to butt heads on this concept quite a lot. But as I’ve grown into an adult, I like to think that you began to recognize the beauty of what you’d passed down to me. That, yes, curiosity can kill the cat, but it also affords life lessons, and a maturity that - if the life lessons are taken to heart - cannot be passed down through words alone. You have finally afforded me the gift of letting me go, letting me make my own mistakes, and letting me come back to you, a bit broken but a bit more learned, and settling back into your arms. “You were right,” I’ll say, and then I hear once again your words of advice, but this time I understand them and I accept them as the truth. I just needed to experience the opposite in order to truly understand their value.

But, at the time of this tale, we were not quite at this beautiful point of mutual understanding that we exist at now. While I did not do much back then that would fall into the realm of inacceptable, if I did, I did it in the utmost secrecy. And with that, I continue on.

It became a habit of mine to find a reason to duck into the kitchen during dessert time, just so I could watch the chef take her after supper cigarette. I was endlessly fascinated with it. I loved watching the smoke curl around her and the way her body relaxed, turning her into seemingly an entirely different person than the one that I experienced as she slammed food onto plate. I didn’t do it every shift – I knew better than to push my sneaking luck that far – but every second or third shift, I’d indulge my curiosity. Since The Cigarette was now the object of my fascination, but I was unable to access or procure any of my own, watching it seemed the next best thing.

As it turns out, I was a bit less sneaky than I’d thought. It had been maybe a month since my first sighting of the cigarette break. During the previous day’s shift, I had resisted the temptation to observe from the kitchen, so this day was game on. I purposely loaded up not enough plates of dessert, headed out, and promptly headed back in for more dessert. And, more importantly: more Cigarette Watching. It went as normal: I observed for as long as I felt was an acceptable time to be in the kitchen, and then headed back out. Dessert finished, cleaning began and finished, and my shift was done.

I was the last of the servers in the break room: everyone had already left as I gathered my belongings and a half slice of cake that remained. But when I turned around to head out the door, suddenly she was there: Cigarette Chef. She standing in front of the kitchen door, and she was smiling at me: half kindly and half mischievously. In her outstretched hand she held a singular, slender cigarette. At first, all she said was: “For you.”

I stared, trying to tell myself it was a coincidence; that she must offer cigarettes to all of the servers, and that by no means did this mean that I had been caught in the strange act of watching her smoke. “Um, no thanks.” I stammered out.

She laughed. “Oh, come on. Don’t play innocent. I’ve noticed you watching me. For a while now, too. Thought you’d give it up, but you just kept coming back. It’s a bit weird, but I get it. You’re just curious, right? Feels a bit wrong giving a kid a cigarette, but with that much curiosity you’re bound to try it sooner or later. Better this than you stealing from me or somethin’. Here, here’s one, just to try. And then you can hopefully stop being curious and I can stop feelin’ your eyes in the back of my head.”

As she spoke, I flushed through every shade of red and purple that could possibly exist on a human face, and before I could think anymore, I took it, gingerly, as if it would break, looked her ever so briefly in the face, yelled “Thank you so much also sorry!” and bolted out of the kitchen. I heard her behind me: “Don’t get addicted now! They’re bad for you, you know.” “Don’t worry also sorry again!” I shouted back, and ran and continued running until I was home.

I was relieved to find that no one was home. I went to the family computer and looked up videos on how to smoke. After watching three or so, I felt very unsatisfied – all the videos seemed to show how to light it, and hold it, but no one had specific instructions on how to inhale or like, breath, while smoking. Was I supposed to suck in a huge wave of breath, like you do before playing a wind instrument? Was I supposed to breath in and out normally or should I hold my breath with the smoke inside my mouth? How long did I wait in between smokes to do another one? How long is it supposed to take to smoke one cigarette? Also – will I be instantly addicted? Will I turn into a cigarette-driven animal, stark raving mad, flipping over furniture until I get another one? Will my face shrivel up? Will my family recognize me? Will I be laying in bed in the fetal position, wracked with pain from withdrawals? Will they have to tie me to the headboard as sweat drips down my face and the power of the cigarette leaves my body?

As none of the videos seemed to answer these questions, I cleared my browser history, tried to clear my mind from paranoid thoughts, and continued on with the mission. And this is when I made an incredibly unwise decision: I decided to smoke inside.

To offer myself a bit of sympathetic leniency - I really (clearly) knew nothing about these types of things. I didn’t know that the smoke permeated, and lingered, and smelled very strongly and very clearly of itself. I figured if I lit a few candles, the smell of the candle smoke and the cigarette smoke would mingle together, and no one would be the wiser.

And so, with this incredibly sound and foolproof logic, I headed downstairs to the room at the farthest end of the house. It was our storage room, and it had no light save the soft light coming in through its one window. One of the things stored in there was an old broken dresser, with a cracked but large and very useable mirror atop. And this is where I planned to commit my crime.

After yelling out “Hello?” a couple of times, just to double check that the house was empty, I closed to the door to the room, and placing the cigarette gently onto the dresser, I opened the basement window as wide as it would open. “This’ll take care of all the extra smoke,” I thought. “The smoke will be drawn to the outside air and it’ll just all drift out the window.” (Have I mentioned yet that my brain does not exactly excel at logic?)

I did not light the smoke immediately. I first posed in the mirror, the cigarette lilting daintily in my outstretched fingers. I pretended I was Daisy Buchanan, my body stretched lazily about. I put the cigarette to my lips, and pretended to take a long and dramatic inhale. “I hope she’s a fool,” I said in my best Daisy voice. I held the cigarette haughtily, tragically, by my head. Another long and dramatic fake inhale. “A beautiful, perfect little fool.”

I played a round with a few other poses: changed my face to look my best version of nonchalant and Very Cool: I knew exactly what cigarettes were. I understood perfectly how to smoke them. I did it all the time, and I could definitely also beat you up. And then I was tragic again: my cigarette hanging limply between my fingers, barely holding on, just as my character in the mirror was barely clinging to life after the tragic yet heroic death of her husband in The War. And then I was me again. I leaned close to the mirror, and stared at myself intently. “You’re going to do this, Meghan. You’re running out of time. People could come home any minute. You’re going to smoke a cigarette right now.”

And so, I grabbed a match, and lit the end of the cigarette. I sucked in as it lit – the videos had told me that much – and I found it to be a very overwhelming and terrifying experience. To both hold a lit match to an object and control my breath at the same time in a specific way I’d never done before seemed incredibly complex to me. When the cigarette had already burned down about a quarter of the way, I finally took the match away, very nervous that the end of it would suddenly go out. But it stayed lit.

I held it in my mouth for a moment, transfixed by the glowing embers at the end of it. I found them incredibly beautiful. One of my favorite things in this world has always been the red-hot embers at the bottom of a firepit, and I love how, as the night winds down and less wood is stoked into the flame, the embers become more visible, and more intense, as the remaining logs burn down and become one with the flickering coals. “It’s like my own tiny firepit,” I thought. A little circle of dancing coals, just for me.

The cigarette itself was very anticlimactic. I genuinely do not remember tasting anything. I had expected it to taste either entirely foul, or like some nectar from the gods. Foul, if I were not destined to be an addict and I simply tasted the amalgamations of whatever grossness they put in there, or nectar, if I were destined to be chained for life to the Almighty Cigarette. But, as it turns out, it was neither. Looking back, I realize I probably wasn’t inhaling the smoke at all, which I mean, all the better for my lungs in that case.

While not, however, instantly physically addicted, I was quite taken with the way I looked in the mirror. Taking a long drag, holding the smoke in my mouth (which is what I assumed you were supposed to do with it), and slowly, dramatically, blowing out that beautiful cloud of grey. I looked mysterious, and, I’ll admit it, I thought myself very, very cool. I was enamored with the elegance of lightly holding something thin between two fingertips, with the inherent drama in exhaling a cloud of smoke, and with the bright, burning sun at the end of my fingers. I savoured that cigarette to its full extent, absolute reveling in every moment of drama. And then it was done.

As the smoke (somewhat) dissipated and the red embers disappeared, I was thrown back into reality. The room was full of smoke. I was holding a cigarette butt in my hands. And you, Mother, were probably going to be home soon.

I ran to the bathroom, ran the butt under water for a minute, making sure it was drenched beyond all recognition and could definitely never light again. I then wrapped it in a reasonable half a roll of toilet paper, dug to the bottom of the garbage can in my room and placed it there, covering it again with all the other garbage. Then I went once more into the back room. I had closed the door, in hopes that the smoke would stay inside that one room and that you, Mother, would not enter inside until all the smoke was gone. How long did it take for smoke to go away? Good God, how long could it possibly take?! I really hadn’t anticipated it lingering: my candle smoke seemed to dissipate after a few minutes and I had fully expected this to do the same. This is not what I had counted on. This was turning into a very, very big problem. I began to truly panic.

I began frantic attempts at waving the smoke towards the open window with a cushion. The smoke looked like it was moving, but who could tell? After doing that for several minutes, with likely limited success, I flew back into my bedroom and lit every candle I could get my hands on, bringing them hastily into the back room. I was carrying a few at a time each trip, and it’s honestly a miracle I didn’t drop one and burn down the whole house – which was, if I’m being honest, a thought that crossed my mind as a solution. If the entire house burned down, no one would ever be able to smell the stench of a singular cigarette. But I decided I’d better not. I liked having a place for my family and I to sleep at night.

And that’s when I heard the sounds of a car pulling up outside. The moment had finally come: You Were Home. I quickly blew out all the candles in the back room, hoping the smoke from them would overpower the smoke of the cigarette. I tore through the hallway, arms heaped with recently unlit candles, practically threw them all in my room, and lit them all again. I turned the light off, grabbed my iPod and headphones, and put them in with nothing playing, laying down in bed. To the casual observer, I hoped it to look as if I had been laying there for a long time, doing nothing more nefarious than simply being a moody teenager, laying in the dark, candles burning, and listening to music.

I heard you come in the front door. I held my breath and half wished I could die, and prayed with all my heart that you would never smell anything and it would all turn out okay. You shouted hello, and I debated remaining silent and incognito: but realized that would likely just bring you downstairs to investigate where I was. I shouted back “Hi! I’m tired from work I’m just laying down!”, and you replied “Me too. I’m gonna go nap for a bit. Rest well!” “Thank you you too!” I yelled back, trying to keep the panic out of my voice. I thanked God profusely. Maybe everything would turn out ok after all.

But, of course, it did not. As you likely remember by this point, you came downstairs after your nap, about an hour later. As I laid still as a corpse and wished to die, I heard you enter the back room. You exited sharply, swiftly, and my door flew open as you stood there in a rage. “Why does it smell like cigarettes down here? Have you been smoking cigarettes in my house?!”

I cowered in a ball at the corner of my bed, and pleaded innocent with incredible fervor. What continued was a not-uncommon-at-the-time shouting match between the both of us: you, bathed in righteous rage, and me, playing the innocent victim. The shocking and unusual thing is that, I won that argument. You ended up believing me. You eventually accepted my explanation of all the candles I had lit, and you backed down, and you apologized for accusing me of something so outlandish. You shook your head at yourself and said you must have been imagining things.

It’s odd, because back in those days, when we were often at each others necks, you accused me of so many things. And very, very often, they were false. I really, honestly was a good kid - a rule-abiding and God-fearing child. I’m still not sure why you were so convinced of the opposite. I never felt like you saw me as how I truly was; saw how hard I tried to please you and everyone else. You seemed to be constantly waiting for me to trip up, and when I didn’t, you’d imagine all the ways I could and convince yourself they were true. I still don’t know why. Why, mom? Why did you never believe me when I told you the truth?

And so here it is, my confession. My un-truth, transformed into truth. The whole story, laid plain before you. My gift to you is the knowledge that you were not crazy. You knew what you knew. You did not accuse me unjustly. I’m sorry for smoking a cigarette in your home. But mostly I’m sorry for the way I made you feel: like you were crazy, like in doing nothing wrong you had committed a most grievous crime. Like you shouldn’t trust what you knew; the own truth of your mind.

Because this is how you made me feel, so often. And I also don’t think this is the only time that I, as well, made you feel like this. Yes, I was a good kid. But as you know, I ended up growing a little crooked.

We’re so intertwined, you and I. You’ve hurt me in ways, and I’ve simply taken those ways and hurt you right back. And several years ago, you extended an olive branch. It was the first step in my new beginning, because it was the first time I was completely honest with you, or anyone, about some terrible things I’d done. And you received my honesty with kindness, understanding, sympathy, and sadness: not at any pain I’d caused others, which I had fully expected to be admonished for, but for the pain I had caused myself. In that moment you were everything I’d always needed you to be, and you have been that way ever since.

I don’t know why, but this cigarette lie of mine has always stuck with me. In the grand scheme of the things I’ve done, it’s fairly small on the scale, but I held a lot of guilt over it. And in confessing it to you, I know I’ve said some things about the way you used to interact with me that are less than pretty. An odd Mother’s Day gift, to be sure. “Hey mom, Happy Mother’s Day! By the way, remember when you were scary and mean?”

But I wanted it to be fully honest. And I hope that, in return, we can both talk about the ways that we’ve hurt each other, because I know I’ve hurt you too. I don’t mean any of this to be accusatory. I just want to talk, and to know, and to understand. I want to know the hurt that was in you back in those days, the hurt that caused you to be how you were, as I now understand that it is our own hurt that causes us to hurt others. I want to hold your hurt as you held mine: softly, mourning for its existence, acknowledging its presence, and eventually focusing on to how to move forward from the hurt.

I love you, mom. So much of you is in me. I hope to become as good as you are someday, that my life may be a living gift to you.