My friend Thomas, who lives in New York, sent me pictures of his view of the Hudson River under the thick fog that descended from the blazes of Canada to his city. It seems that the air quality has deteriorated so much that going outside to play is like smoking six cigarettes these days. Which makes us laugh yellow, like the color of the sky, because Thomas and I are two smokers. Very accomplices when we have the chance to see each other.
As luck would have it, on the day the Big Apple was being smoked, Thomas was having a scanning lungs. A preventive examination. What irritates even the healthiest person as they get older – I just got my first invitation for a mammogram preventive, and that revived my hypochondria. The older we get, the more we are convinced that doctors will find something for us, and the less we want to know, because we already know that we have fewer years left to live. However, it is by confronting a problem at the beginning that we have a better chance of solving it.
But if it’s the end of the world that’s coming, we honestly wonder what’s the point of quitting smoking.
On the phone, Thomas jokingly tells me that it might be better to smoke indoors to avoid outdoor pollution, lol. I suggest that she smoke six fewer cigarettes, to balance it all out. “People take pictures like it’s a blizzard, then they talk to each other and look at each other instead of staying on their phones,” Thomas informs me. It’s a lot like the atmosphere after 9/11. We are all together and we are watching the end. »
I met Thomas several years ago at a festival in Haiti. He is a Francophile, gay American, who teaches Quebec and Haitian literature in particular at a New York university, and he will soon be retiring.
Thomas is older than me, I love when he tells me about his past in the 1970s and 1980s. He lived the years before AIDS, during AIDS and after AIDS, how gays were treated during this epidemic. He has seen others, it gives him a depth of field in his eyes. “I find that there is no more citizen solidarity. We saw that with COVID; we have the vaccine, you don’t have it, die. He is not talking about those who refuse the vaccine with all their fiber, but about poor countries.
We have a lot of talking points these days, each of which deserves a cig. The conservative backlash against the LGBTQ+ community, the crisis in Haiti, the gun problem in the United States, and those wildfires at home affecting his life in New York. “Your apocalypse is upon us,” he told me. My eyes hurt, I have to close the windows. He adds that there is an economic impact to all of this. No one is out, construction sites are deserted, plays have been canceled on Broadway.
It seems that the smell of our burnt wood is terrible, but it’s an unexpected scent of Quebec that makes him want to come for a walk in Montreal.
Talk about a vicious cycle. I smoke more when I’m stressed, and all that stresses me out a lot, but since it’s suffocating outside, it totally takes the taste away from me. Will nature succeed where all prevention campaigns have failed to make me aware of the danger? From no smoking nine meters from buildings to atrocious photos of cancer on packages and soon to scary messages on EVERY cigarette, nothing has gotten the better of my vice.
But it worked, prevention. I’m practically the last smoker in my vast entourage and, honestly, I think that’s good.
The dream of a “smoke-free world”, as seen in anti-smoking advertising campaigns, is truly possible, children no longer grow up surrounded by ashtrays. It’s still sad that, about to get there, the world threatens to become unbreathable.
To talk about climate change, we often give the image of the frog that is plunged into a saucepan and does not realize that it will cook if it is boiled quietly. I find that the example of the smoker is closer to reality with what happens to us. The frog doesn’t know what’s going on, but the smoker does. We know what’s bad for the environment, but we don’t want to do without it. Specialists show us figures and models, but we leave room to think that it will not be as terrible as expected.
Exceptions that defy the stats do not change the stats. I understand, because I sometimes give myself hope by thinking of those rare little old women who turned centenarians with a daily glass of brandy, and who quit smoking at 80. And then, Thomas received the results of his scanningand everything is beautiful.