Reflections in the Mists

14th January, 2010: Posted by glpease in Pipes, Enjoyment, Editorial

This morning, I took a somewhat extended walk after dropping my son at school. Our walk is only a few blocks, and I always seem to be in a rush to get back home to begin the daily routines that have become my work over the past few years. This morning, it just wasn’t long enough.

The air is foggy and chilled, and the feeling on my face was too inviting to ignore. I decided to take the long way home, wandering towards the shore, and stopping off at the water’s edge to watch some ducks and some coots (birds, not old men) fishing in the still tides. A Castello Collection stack, deeply colored and wearing a rich mahogany patina from years of smoking, filled to its beveled top with some old Garfinkel’s Orient Express #11 was my sole companion.

On days like this, smoke lingers in the mists a little longer than usual, becoming more fragrant and enticing as it mingles with and is cooled by the moist air, inviting a second whiff, and a third. The smoking is more relaxed, more contemplative. This is the weather that pipe smoking was invented for. A wonderfully complex aroma of orientals, virginias, latakia filled my senses more fully than usual as the genii rose from the pipe and danced in the air around me.

On the way back, I trampled through tall grasses with soggy shoes and trouser legs, the smoke both following and preceding my wandering. Taking breaks from puffing, pausing to enjoy the haunting aroma, revived memories from what is now 30 years with the briar, of so many places I’ve been, so many things I’ve seen, so many of these memories accompanied by a great pipeful. The sense of smell is known to be the most powerful of memory triggers. No matter how much we evolve, how civilized we become, we remain intimately connected with that aspect of our distant ancestors, for whom smells could mean the difference between life and death. There was a time, too, when the ability to produce fire could also mark that difference. Both are essential elements of life, and of pleasure.

Pipe smoking is a civilized pastime, a ritual of fire and smoke and smells, of briar and of leaf, that connects us deeply in ways we don’t necessarily understand with both our distant and not so distant past. Today’s world is densely packed with things that seem important, but in the end, may not be. Our lives are enriched through more simple pleasures, through engaging our senses, through moments of contemplation, through connecting with what it is to be alive, to be human. This morning’s longer walk was a gentle alarm clock, waking up a part of my own being I’d allowed to become dormant.

As this, too, becomes part of my memory’s landscape, I’ll try to hold onto it a little more closely, and not let so much time lapse between it and the next. And, when someone asks, with that tone of derision and accompanying front-of-the-face dance-of-the-hands that is far too common in today’s less than civilized society, why I smoke a pipe, I’ll simply refer them here, and then silently enjoy the reverie of another puff.

-glp

8 Responses

  1. Joseph Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 10:56

    Greg,

    I’ve recently also come to realize how powerful our sense of smell is with memory trigger. Wonderful blog entry, I really enjoyed reading it!

  2. Richard Davis Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 11:08

    There is a reason Mr. Holmes smoked a pipe when contemplating his next case.

  3. Matt Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 11:25

    Sounds like a joyful escape from the din of our ordinary. I love moments like that, and enjoy them by proxy…Especially when they are written so descriptively. Pipe smoking is an act of true Zen- Demanding we root ourselves in the present. When grounded in this way, we rediscover that there are no ordinary moments. I’m happy you had such a moment my friend.

  4. Jim Murray Says:
    January 14th, 2010 at 11:39

    Greg,

    Very nicely written. I also feel that pipe smoking is a “civilized pastime”… and we all need to be more civilized.

    Thanks!

  5. Ed Anderson Says:
    January 15th, 2010 at 3:33

    Thanks for taking us along on your morning walk Greg.

  6. Moe Says:
    January 16th, 2010 at 20:11

    The entry touches on so many points at the same time; all in a way most civilised, thought-provoking, and true.

    All I can say is: thank you, Greg.

    What a break.

  7. David Says:
    March 1st, 2010 at 17:18

    I gotta jump on the band wagon here. I’ve been reading several of your posts here, Greg, and I have to say I find myself captured by your personal and intimate voice. It feels as if you’re sharing your experience with only me, as if we’re sitting with a cup of coffee and a pipe on the deck in the morning. All of your writings have a way of holding onto me as a reader and I stick around not just for the information, but for the journey that you take me on. Really great stuff. Excuse me while I keep reading.

  8. Tony Suvie Says:
    March 12th, 2010 at 20:28

    I occassionly take a walk or a drive home the long way just to indulge in my pipe longer. Your article just got me to reflecting on my dad who introduced me to pipe smoking when I was about 16. After reading your piece I am going to get a couple of the drugstore brands just to re-kindle trigger even more memories of dad when we were both younger. He is still here with us but is no longer a smoker. I experience joy each time I light up just about. At least 50% of the pipes I have came from him. And ,several I myself bought him on various ocasions in my early teens, I’m now 54! Hey I have some real treasures in my bunch.

    Thank you for stirring my memories

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