On a serious side, another favorite from jwg, QSMB's Invisible Man. The imagery is haunting to me.
John passed on 12/28/13, age 50, of lung cancer. He is still missed by many, but his words live on and continue to inspire quitters.
jwg
Invisible Member Location: someplace in the clouds
Posted 09 December 2012 - 03:54 AM
sea air so thick it drips off the buidings settling on the coble stone roads flowing into the crevasse and cracks like tiny rivers flowing back to the sea. I spent many nights walking the streets of old port towns in my younger days many nights my friend Possum would join me. As you might amagine , morings an waking up just were not his thing. But he and I had a lot in common . It wasn’t all just about wondering these empty streets so much as it was waiting and getting primed to join the party. A good bar might not open till 1 or 2 Am and we would have to be ready . No one shows up to that kind of place not already half into the wind.
So we would spend a few hours walking the streets , drinking are bottles of wine so neatly hiding in brown paper bags. I wore a denim trench coat and he in a leather jacket off brown and black , it looked like was ripped of the side of some calico cat. Back then my brand was Winston I really cant recall what Paul was smoking . I would just be happy if he had his own. On nights like these friend or not , you just cant be carrying enough for someone to be bumming.
Paul was a smart kid , I knew he was so most of what he would say I would listen and often tended to agreed. I remember one night he said to me “ you know nights like these are going to be the greatest of our lifes”
I said you know I think your right.. the fun we had I could never write of it all even in ten pages wouldn’t even cover half of it. Or would the jokes or laughs be as funny.
I could write of the time I saw this girl a year later from last time we were in port and her in broken English , pregnant as could be saying
You daddy … and me saying You crazy momma.. and we both laughed . I would give anything to remember her name.
Years later I would find myself sitting around picnic tables at some friends or relatives house drinking beer with the guys all of them telling there storys of glory days and touch downs. I would just sit and listen unwilling to share mine. Not of fear that I would out do them or I that I was to shy but more the momories of my greatest days were just mine , I did not want to share them . maybe it was from fear they would lessen or loose some value
Threw the years my life has gone into the toilet more then once. It was at these times I held so tightly to my memories cause they proved to me there is good in the world. There are good times and laughs , there is such a thing as happiness. I knew it to be true because I had once lived it. And If I hung on hard enough I could live these things and feeling again .. the bad will pass I would always tell myself . ‘just hang on, just hang on’
Then as I got even older I began to see life threw a different lens and knew it was time to do some house cleaning . I knew I had to quit smoking I knew I wanted more out of life then the cigarettes had to offer
But honestly I was scared to quit .. it wasn’t fear of withdrawl.. I had seen and lived threw far worst things then that could ever be. It wasnt fear of never getting to smoke again. Truth be told I had not enjoyed a cigarette in years. I was afraid if I let go of the cigarettes it meant I had to let go of all my memories , not memories of smoking per say , but the memories of all the good times I had when I was a smoker. I was afraid I would not ever be able to hold on to them the way I once did. Cigarettes were indirectly my connection to happiness. Something I now feared I may never find again . But my rational mind over came and greater then fear I new with certainty if I continued to smoke there was no way in the world I could ever achive the goals I had set forth to see true before my end.
So I let go . I gambled. I let go of the cigarettes I let go of the memories
But you know what the memories came back I still have them and some nights if I close my eyes I can taste the salt in the air, so thick it was in the old port towns
`jwg`
