I Only Smoke When I'm in Paris ... Except When I'm in New York

while in Paris with my friend, Weisberg, we frequented the cafés and enjoyed wine, cheese and hot chocolate sitting under hot lamps on breezy October evenings.  Part of the enjoyment for me was the second-hand smoke.  Parisians love their cigarettes and made me love them too.  The smell, combined with deep, “Frenchmen” voices speaking lyrical words, ignited a yearning inside me.  I wanted a cigarette. 

Never a smoker, the desire surprised me.  But I didn’t think much about the surprise, just how to get a pack.  “Buy them,” Weisberg said in her logical way.  After checking my French dictionary, I walked boldly to the bartender.  “Je voudrais une cigarette,” I said, motioning with fingers in a V to my mouth.  The bartender leveled his gaze at me then opened a drawer under the bar.  Expecting a selection of exotic names and packages, I was disappointed to see Winston’s and Marlboro’s when I leaned over to see the choices.  “Which do you want?” he asked sounding like New Jersey.  Even more disappointing.  I took the Winston’s. 

I smoked like I knew how, like I smoked my whole life.  The drag, swallowing the smell, the bittersweet taste after sipping dry, red wine.  Ah, Paris.  I breathed it in, reveled in it, spoke in a throaty voice.  Weisberg turned her head and waved the smoke away. 

A year later, back in Paris with my friends Weisberg, Linda and Tracy, the desire returned.  After a fantastic dinner on Île Saint-Louis at a restaurant where the locals eat, I smelled the smoke.  Since the island is mostly residential and it was late, I’d have to cross a bridge to get to a store.  “My friend here is hungry for a cigarette,” Tracy said to the waiter motioning with her head to a table of eight men celebrating someone’s birthday.  They all smoked.  The waiter approached the table and with several waves of his hand in our direction, one of the gentlemen held his pack out, looked at me and smiled.  Served to me on a napkin, I held the cigarette to my lips and the waiter promptly lit it.  Again I felt one with the city of lovers and art.

Eight months later, after dinner at El Parador, a great restaurant on 34^th and 1^st, I smelled the yearning again.  But it wasn’t from a Parisian’s cigarette, or after enjoying Croque Monsieur on the Rue de Rivoli.  The yearning was to be who I was in Paris – to bring that person home.  I went to Duane Reade and bought a pack of Newport Lights.  I lit up in front of the Empire State Building on my way to the train.  Tangy smoke filled my nose.  Horns blared as the traffic rushed past.  I exhaled.  Bonsoir, I whispered. 

LYRICS AND LIFE

IN HIS LIFE   John Lennon had magic in his mind.  His words and music brought people together, challenged them.  He stuck his finger in the air not to anger, but to inspire.  To challenge society and the rules governing and shaping our minds.  John used his vast talent to encapsulate what it means to be human – to show the way to love.  Not “how” to love, but “the way.”  The direction love takes if you are truly a humanitarian accepting all, thinking for all.  Imagine there’s no country, he said. 

As a songwriter Lennon masterminded the elements to capture emotions – in a single phrase or word – “Mama,” he screamed from the depths to a woman he didn’t know, a woman who left him in childhood.  Then later about the same woman, “Silent cloud, touch me.” 

Give peace a chance.  Living is easy with eyes closed.  No longer riding on the merry go round.  Oh Yoko.  In my life, I loved them all.  Lyrics, words, phrases that resonate through generations, across the universe.  John’s ripples are deep, everlasting.  A tribute to his humanity, his purpose.  Dying young sealed his effect in cement.  An effect that won’t change except in people’s hearts when they hear his music.  Imagine hearing his music for the first time 50 years from now.  Picture a young boy turning on his iPod that’s now built into a chip somewhere near his ear, tuning into Strawberry Fields or In My Life.  Where will the boy be while listening?   Will he be walking on a city street with mini-cars flying above him?  Will he be sitting in a meadow of grass that is forever green?  Or will he be lying in bed in a space station somewhere near Jupiter?  Maybe he’s in New York, in front of the Dakota looking up at the building where John lived, or standing in the middle of the Imagine circle in Central Park.  How will John’s words affect him?  How will the strings of music turn his head to listen more closely?  What will he see when he turns?  How will he feel the music in his heart?  How do we all feel music in our hearts?  We feel.  John makes us feel.  John offered the magic of his mind so we could play around with it in our heads and see how it fit inside.  See how it changed us.  How we were brought together as a generation.  A generation that changed the world.  Imagine.