Nostalgia and Smoke

I have so much I'd like to tell you -so much on my mind -but seeing as it's nearing four in the morning when I'm writing this and I neither wish to start packing for my next semester of college (read last semester) nor wish to think of what these next four months might hold in store for me, I suppose I should write something. After all, it feels like ages since I last updated this blog. Though, in reality, I just posted a collection of original dabbles not too long ago. Still...

The question is, what should I write?

Should I tell you how I doubt myself? How I sometimes have the fleeting thought of dropping out of college that isn't so much as fleeting because sometimes it likes to stay around for tea and cakes? Should I tell you of how I taught my three-year-old foster sister how to play an air guitar? Should I tell you how I had to explain to said three-year-old that Batman doesn't eat people but save them (long story. Cute story. But long)?

Perhaps I should write about sexuality in literature. After all, I've already been working on an article, so to speak, on the subject. Or maybe I should jot down another dabble. Or I could always recite to you some of my favorite lines of the book I'm currently reading. For the record, it's Looking for Alaska, by John Green. 

There's so much I could tell you, but what should I tell you? Hmm? I can tell you anything. Literally. At this very moment you have absolutely no power over what I say or do. I could write about anything. Tell you anything I wanted to, and you'd have no power to do anything about it. I could write about how uncomfortable thongs are and you wouldn't have a say in the mater. How does that make you feel? I'm not going to write about thongs though (Cue the sarcastic awes). I love a good fashion article as much as the next girl but I have absolutely no desire to talk about or ponder on undergarments tonight. Particularly not the thong. I mean, come on. A thong? It's a piece of string, people! It's like a really, really, really, skimpy loincloth. Tarzan wouldn't have even worn that, even if it was the last piece of clothing in the jungle. 

So, since we're not going to talk about thongs (pity since I now feel like I could write a rant article on them), the question still remains, what should we talk about? 

Nostalgia! Now that's a topic. We'll talk about nostalgia. Or really, I'll write about it and you'll read it. Because, let's be honest here, no talking will take place unless you decided to put your thoughts to the keyboard and write me out a little comment on this piece of work I call a blog post. In which case, if you do, I would respond, then you would respond, then I would respond. That's how communication works. Message, sender, receiver, reply...but as much as I'd love to talk about communication and all the lovely little facts I've learned about it from my communication classes, and about how all those factoids are part of a bigger picture us students of humanity like to call the human experience and condition, we have a topic to talk about. 

As I was saying before I so rudely interrupted myself, nostalgia....

Have you ever experienced those moments where you feel nostalgic but you don't know what for? Those moments where you just lay there sucking on a piece of chocolate as images of your life flash behind your eyes and though you don't smoke you contemplate how a cigarette would feel in your hand because, for some reason you can't explain, it feels like the only thing that moment is lacking is a cigarette?

Maybe you have, maybe you haven’t, or maybe I’m the only person who’s ever felt that way. Which I find highly unlikely considering that billions of other humans have walked this earth before me. After all these years, and all those humans, you can’t say I’m the first person to discover this state of being. You just can’t.

Regardless of whether You’ve felt that state or not, that’s how I felt yesterday (And by yesterday I don’t mean like four ago from when I started writing this yesterday…I mean like technically two days ago yesterday), as I lay there on my bright green yoga ball with a piece of Lindor chocolate melting on my tongue. A cigarette right then, I thought, would fit perfectly in my hand. Which is odd considering that I never have, nor do I have a desire to ever, smoke, because of three reasons: A) I can’t stand the smell of cigarettes. It’s just nasty, B) Inhaling a stick of tar and rat poison is not at all appealing to me, and C) I’d like it if my lungs continued functioning as they’re supposed to…thus I was left with an empty hand…which isn’t really accurate because I did end up picking up my ink pen and journaling.

I think it’s the metaphor, the symbolism behind smoking, that’s the whole reason I think about it sometimes. I mean, you could chalk it up to the media if you’re one of those people that think the media are to be blamed for everything. It’d be really easy. Like, seriously. Think about it, the media (particularly movies and magazines) has the nasty habit of portraying people who are nostalgic, depressed, sad, worried, and contemplative with either a cigarette or a bottle of booze in there hand. There you go, See, I blamed the media. But really no…just no…it’s not the media’s fault. At least, as a student of literature and humanity I don’t want to say it’s the media’s fault. But, I digress (Something I’ve been doing a lot of since starting this post. Seriously, someone should count how many times I’ve gotten off topic or on tangents so far….look, there I go again. I really need to stop. But oh well, like I said earlier, you really have no power to make me. Plus its four in the morning, I’m sleep deprived, and suffering from a state that all book worms no very well, called a book coma).

As I was saying, though. I think it’s the metaphor, the symbolism behind smoking, that’s the whole reason I sometimes contemplate how a cancer stick would feel in my hand. I’ve come to realize that John Green uses smoking as a metaphor and symbol in his works. In The Fault in our Stars, Green outright says it’s a metaphor through Augustus Waters. In Looking for Alaska, it’s a symbol. A symbol of what? I’m still working on that. I’ve come up with a list of many possible meanings for it, but I think it all boils down to one single quote from the book, and that quote is:

          “Why do you smoke so damn fast?’ I asked.

          She looked at me and smiled widely, and such a wide smile on her narrow face might have looked goofy were it not for the unimpeachably elegant green in her eyes. She smiled with all the delight of a kid on Christmas morning and said, "Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.”

          I’ve underlined those words in my copy of Looking for Alaska because it feels like there’s something deeply profound about them. Like Mr. Green maybe saying he’s talking about smoking, but really he’s talking about life.

          You see, the characters Pudge, the Coronel, and Alaska smoke a lot in the first half of the story, and they talk about smoking a lot, and they buy smokes a lot, and on top of that they drink and goof around a lot, and in between –as well as during –all those times they talk about life. They go about it in a vague sort of way, the talking about life, where you sometimes have to reread what they said just to be sure you heard them correctly, but it’s absolutely life that they’re talking about.

       

   “Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.”

          What is Alaska saying there exactly? That they smoke for the heck of it while she smokes to numb the pain? To chase herself to an early grave because she believes the only escape for her – the only way out of the labyrinth, as she puts it so eloquently –is death?

          I mean, I know what I believe she’s saying, but what do you think she’s saying? This whole wanting to smoke every once in a while, without really wanting to smoke? What is that about? Does it have something to do with what Alaska said? With what John Green wrote? Maybe it all goes back to pleasure or pain. The motives behind it. In those nostalgic moments, are you feeling pain or pleasure? Are you feeling at ease or like a rat trapped in a maze?

   

       So many questions to ponder over. It’s a funny thing nostalgia. It’s defined as being, “A sentimental longing or wistful affection for the past,” yet it can stir up all sorts of emotions. All sorts of ghosts. I was experiencing wistful affection when I thought of that cigarette, and I wondered what it would be like to hold it between my fingers and inhale its poisonous innards.

          Hmmm….

          “Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.” That’s really the point of it, isn’t it. Maybe the media is to blame somewhat, for portraying the habit as being relaxing. Maybe that’s why the thought crossed my mind.

 Enjoyment. Wistful thinking of the past.

“Y’all smoke to enjoy it. I smoke to die.”

I still feel like there’s more behind those words. More to them. I suppose I’ll have to spend more hours debating their meaning with ink on the pages of my journal. Perhaps, after time, I will come to a conclusion I’m satisfied with.

Can you tell that I’m in a very nostalgic and contemplative mood today? I’ve been like this these last couple of days. Last week before my final semester of college starts and I’m not doing anything society would deem productive. I’ve just been lounging around in my fluffy batman pants and black shirt (not every day, mind you. That’s just nasty. Personal hygiene…it’s important), alternating between reading Looking for Alaska and checking my messages on DeviantArt and Facebook. I don’t really no why I bother checking facebook anymore. It’s gotten so predictable. My entire newsfeed at the moment is wedding, wedding, wedding, wedding, anniversary, wedding, anniversary, engagement photos, baby photos, cute status about baby, status about how someone wants a baby, more weddings, and oh, look, a rant about some sports game. Like I said. Predictable. Yet, I check it. You know, for connections and all that.

My yoga ball’s been my chair for these past few days and I’m convinced that there’s nothing more comfortable than a yoga ball. Except maybe a bed after falling off said yoga ball multiple times and whacking your head on all sorts of random pieces of furniture. I’m going to return to school with bruises everywhere and people are going to ask me how I got them, and I’m going to have to say what I normally have to say when people ask such questions, “I was doing something stupid.” And Then I’ll tell them that I fell off a yoga ball and a few of them will blink unbelievingly, but those who know me will laugh and shake their heads, and say, “Only you.”

That’s my life, folks. I’m a contemplative, nostalgic, Batman loving, yoga ball using, chocolate eating, girl who sometimes thinks about cigarettes even though she knows she’ll never try one because she finds them utterly unappealing.

And that, my friends, is all I have to say.