As a girl, my ambition was to smoke
I blame Katharine Hepburn. Maybe Lauren Bacall. Possibly Audrey Hepburn. But mostly Katharine Hepburn.
With her glamorous looks, chic sense of style (those flowing, high-waisted trousers!), and her fierce independent spirit, I loved her on screen. I wanted what she had. Phooey — I wanted to be her.
The closest I came was to smoke.
Back in the 1960s, when I was not yet 10 years old, a woman smoking represented a woman independent, a woman of her own mind, a woman doing her own thing. That was the woman I wanted to be.
So I smoked.
To be sure, not real actual cigarettes. I ‘smoked’ short pencils or tightly rolled up paper, glued together and coloured at one end to represent the burning part. As you can see in the top photo, my siblings got in on the act and I was my most suave and sophisticated 8- or 9-year-old self lighting my sister’s ‘cigarette’.
In high school, my best friend taught me how to inhale. Menthol cigarettes, pilfered from her mother’s supply as I recall. No wonder that, during my year in France between high school and university, I did not succumb to the lure of the Gauloises cigarettes — so far from menthol as to be in an entirely different league: You had to be a serious smoker to enjoy inhaling that mix and I was not a serious smoker.
But in university, smoking became serious business for me and I succumbed. Many of my political (feminist and student union) friends smoked and, together, we enjoyed endless hours of talking and plotting and planning, clouded in smoke and wrapped in camaraderie.
By my mid-twenties, I came to my senses and quit. Thereafter, I dabbled occasionally with other people’s cigarettes (OPs, as we called them), but never again took up the habit seriously. And thank goodness for that. These days, I am annoyed if cigarette smoke comes wafting my way from down the block! Disgusting.
But, today, young people in Canada are succumbing to the allure of smoking in the form of vaping. Flavoured as bubble gum or cotton candy (menthol seems positively innocent by comparison), they must think they’re cool …or something. I feel bad for them. My seducers were wonderful strong women on the big screen; today’s young smokers are being seduced by powerful lobby groups and big tobacco companies with slick advertising. Much harder to withstand or overcome.
When we speak of the innocence of childhood, mine was the real deal. In my family the love was genuine, good food and secure shelter were givens, and independence was encouraged. So I could safely play out my fantasy of being Katharine Hepburn by ‘smoking’ short pencils and dreaming of being a strong woman. And at least some of that has come true.
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| Both my parents smoked, though had quit by the 1970s. I think my mother, Anne, gave Katharine Hepburn a run for her money as 'sophisticated with cigarette in hand', wouldn't you agree? .............................................................................................................. To receive my weekly blogpost in your inbox, email fiveyearsawriter at gmail dot com. Simply put SUBSCRIBE in the subject line. Land acknowledgement: I respectfully recognize that I live on the original lands of Anishinaabe, Cree, Oji-Cree, Dakota and Dene peoples, and on the homeland of the Métis Nation. |
I smoked from the time I went off to college at 16, off and on, until I finally quit about twenty years ago. Now I am, like you, totally intolerant.
ReplyDeleteBut back in the 60s and 70s everyone I knew smoked. Part of the table decor for dinner parties were little crystal ashtrays with a silver rim, one at each place place setting.
And we smoked everywhere, in restaurants and bars, in waiting rooms, at the movies, in privates homes, including those of non-smokers. The entire world must have reeked
Last month I lost an old friend from these times. She died of lung cancer.
Figures, doesn’t it
Like others, a mark of being an adult. I started around 15 when I bought a pack from cigarette machines. Stopped a few years later with machines because they raised the price. But then switched to cigars. Cigarillos actually called Swisher sweets. ... as a baby closeted lesbian, I couldn't resist the name. Gave those up too, librarians and cigars? I think not.. glad I stopped the addiction, some times miss the taste and scent.
ReplyDeleteYour mother does look terribly sophisticated and elegant with her cigarette, my mother smoked before she married and had a longing for it, she would smoke OP's cigarettes when we visited someone as long as dad wasn't with us. I smoked straw in the old chicken coop when I was 6, does that count?
ReplyDelete