On Saturday I had a fascinating, beautiful conversation with someone whose mind and spirit humble and inspire mine. How could I not be totally engrossed in a dialogue that weaves together pipe organs, what ornamentation really is, afterthoughts in design, and structural engineering — on top of critiquing and analyzing the bars we were in? In such discourse, one simply does not zone out.

Cigarettes came into the discussion at one point, and my friend shared a thought I have intensely experienced before but never bothered thinking about in intellectual terms.

When you light a cigarette, the action marks a space and time reserved for that experience. A bubble of impenetrable nonchalance, shall we say, within which one scribbles poetry, mutters to themselves, waxes eloquent over obscure philosophies, leans back and lets their mind go blank, leans forward and watches clouds go by, or slouches and ruminates. It is a simple thing you are doing, smoking a cigarette; but it is more than a thing, it creates a nigh-tangible room around you.

That is why smoking a well-filled pipe from beginning to end is such an enjoyable experience — what a cigarette offers in this “space-in-time”, a pipe gives five- or even ten-fold.

Cool, no?

I smile to think I would have reached the same thought if I had smoked more often (and more thoughtfully) last fall. The last time I had a good think on this activity, I compared the puffs of smoke to the misty thoughts that one might bring to a pipe session, and the drifting away of said smoke as a parallel to the tendency (at least for me) of one’s mind being lighter and clearer as the invisible “bubble” dissolves and the smoker is gently reintroduced into a less aromatic reality.

Just so you know, this is not to encourage smoking, not necessarily. But I do invite you to notice what sorts of spaces, objects, and activities bend your perception of time, and how. The effects are subtle and may last even after the smoke clears…