2 posts tagged “smoking”

For the daytime smoker, the cigarette is a pause button. An Official's Time-Out. A reprieve. What you notice about the daytime smoker is that when they aren't on that break, they are generally balls of kinetic energy. They wear their agitation on their faces. The lines furrow on their foreheads. In the midst of conversation, a deeper, darker, internal discourse is happening. It hides just behind the smile or the eyes or in the tap-tap-tapping of their feet and hands. Something worries them. But the moment they find themselves outside, a small carton in one hand, a lighter in the other, the tension starts to dissipate. When the daytime smoker takes that first drag, his or her eyes flutter. She kicks her head back. His hand falls slack. Something resembling but not quite relaxation sets in. For that five or ten minutes in which she focuses on just the act of breathing -- of inhalation and exhalation -- there is a calm. It is fleeting, however. You can watch the angst re-enter his body as the cigarette shrinks in size. With that final ash and smash of the butt into the ash tray or under the shoe or flick into the street, she has resigned herself to this day and what she must do. And the pressure of those duties will build again until that next smoke break. 

There are plenty of reasons for Obama's magic voice: where he grew up, how his parents talked, how he breathes. But perhaps most important is one Obama doesn't want to talk about: cigarettes. Obama is an occasional smoker.

- Smoker's Voice by Juliet Elperin, Slate Magazine, 01.16.07