A cigar has got to know its limitations.

A cigar can’t take the place of a friend.  Period.  I never really thought about it until today. 

I was recently out of town, and my schedule was out of sync.  Ferschimbled. I was with people most of the days and had very little free time to myself – and yet I still felt alone.  I was staying at a hotel and I figured a cigar would cure my malady.

So I went outside to the patio where there are usually white plastic chairs and at least one table to place my tablet on to write.  But when I opened the door leading out of the breakfast room, I noticed that all the chairs and the one table were gone. I looked up and down to no avail.  Where would I smoke my cigar? Where could I write?

I decided to go out of the hotel’s side door instead.  Grass. The sidewalk. A car passing by every now and then on the side street, but no chairs anywhere.  Then I noticed a rather large boulder near the curb. It had what looked to be a comfortable flat spot where I could sit.  So, I sat. “This will work,” I said to myself – until my butt began to feel the icy cold stone through my jeans. Hmm. Well, I took off my gloves and set them down on the rock and was quite surprised that the cold was immediately eliminated.

I took the cello off my cigar, an M-1Toro from Marrero cigars, flicked the lighter and gave that tobacco some life.  A few healthy draws and I christened my new resting spot, The Boulder Cigar Lounge.  

The taste of the tobacco was elegant with a hint of tea leaves.  But I could tell that my idea of replacing my friend’s warmth with the cigar was not taking away from my feeling of being left alone in an empty, cold room.  In fact, my mind began to figuratively sink into the stone. I started to feel as if I were descending into the compacted minerals. The mental hole was circular and offered little room to move.  It was dark, dank, and extremely disturbing.

The surrounding air was moist, bringing with it a slight breeze causing my body to chill beyond the point of simply being uncomfortable to an almost intolerable frigid temperature.   

It seemed as if the cigar had no effect on my mood except to make me shiver with each deep draw.   The cigar almost seemed to be forcing my mind to magnify the silence instead of amplifying past conversations with my friend.  We were literally at opposite ends of the earth, but the chasm between us grew even wider as I continued to slowly slide deeper into the tube-like abyss.

My cigar did nothing, the sweet aroma, the slight peppery aftertaste, the heat from the glowing ember – a taunting trio spiraling me to the nadir of a total loss.

My hands began to stiffen as I tried to type into the darkening pit of isolation.

Then, I refused to succumb to the hellish feeling of being so totally alone.  I began to recall our conversations and how joyful they always are.

My descent stopped like a squeegee on a dry windshield.  My cigar was a third of the way through. I knew what I had to do – get myself grounded.  I got up; quickly put my gloves back on and immediately went back to the room.

As I walked, I knew I would be talking to my friend in a couple of days thinking to myself, “Cigars can be comforting, but are not a cure for the temporary loss of the warmth and brightness of true friendship.”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WWpzwsg2f6M

 

 

Allowing the mind its full potential.

Watching a professional Torcedor go through the motions of creating a cigar from loose tobacco leaves is a fascinating way to spend some time.  Almost like staring at a painting trying to figure out how the artist completed the work.  

But one thing I noticed as I scanned the room and stopped to look at as many rollers as possible, it is a fact that this is not a GM assembly line.  Of course, some sizes and types of tobaccos are different, some are 60s, others 48s, some are long fill, while others are short fill.  But I couldn’t help but become aware of the fact that no two rollers do the job alike. On the surface – yes, they are automatons. But upon closer scrutiny, each has his or her individual style or signature.  

Some are intensely looking at what they are doing at an almost frantic pace that would tire me out in a few hours.  Others are slower, more deliberate – not quite relaxed, but certainly, appear to be in no rush to meet their goals for the day.  Still, others are hooked up to music as they seem to be in a trance as they work – as if by rote, producing superb cigars without ever having to look down at the keyboard if you will. 

It was then I began to wonder to myself if by chance if some of these skilled rollers are producing via automatism.  There are several definitions of the word: “the performance of actions without conscious thought or intention; an action performed unconsciously or involuntarily; or, in art specifically, the avoidance of conscious intention . . . .”  (Google).  

But in the end, it begs the question, “Can a product, be it a book, a work of art, or even  – a cigar, be produced without conscious thought?”  

We moved on into other rooms, but as I passed each of the rollers I was itching to ask each one of them if they are thinking of what they are doing or are they in a half-conscious state and continue to produce out of subconscious associations?

I will never know.  But I have to wonder.  Sometimes I will drive several hours and I seem to attach my fate to the will of God because when I reach my destination unharmed, I have no recollection of the time that has passed or recall noticing the speeding cars that surround me or reading road signs that I pass by.  The details of the journey are a blank. Is this an automatistic experience? 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gBQL2pm-yTk

Nothing is too small to make a difference.

It was on the flight back home in a drowsy state when I wrote this post.  I realized that no matter how infinitesimally small the detail – everything matters to produce a great cigar.  

********

On a recent trip to Nicaragua, several reps and I were shown every aspect of the cigar making process from the tiniest of seedlings to the most beautiful natural green elephant-size tobacco leaves I’ve ever seen.  Everyone was in a jovial mood, giddy even. Full of energy and anticipation of what we would be exposed to next.

Little did we know that lurking in the group was an uninvited guest taking in the same sights, smells and sounds we were enjoying.  Apparently, some vicious bacterium with a sense of humor figured, “Oh, this is gonna be fun.  Let’s get started.”

First, it was (I’ll leave the names of the reps out.) – the one rep.  Yes, there’s always the one who began to get a signal from his body that something wasn’t quite right.  From there that little tickle in his throat turned into a slight cough – very persistent. As the evolution (revolution) began, the cough turned into painful wheezing – that never-ending tuba note that developed into sickly sensations of hot and cold simultaneously producing perspiration and shivers.

One man down.  No desire to do anything but get to the Farmacia as quickly as possible to at least put up a good fight.  Then – man number two down for the count. This time a noticeable pallor was added to the mix just to make sure everyone knew who was going to be da boss of this trip.

Next, and I saw it with my own two eyes, man three – down.   A continuous getting upand down from the conference table, to cough, spit and sneeze.  It wasn’t long before he left us to return to his room and feel the pain.

It was relentless.  Man four.  He stayed the course.  A foolish thing to do as he was an incubator for more of the bacterium to flourish and spread.  The trend was obvious that this little microscopic intruder was out for everyone. And now we knew it.

I was lucky.  I escaped the wrath of this little fellow, but I contracted Montezuma’s revenge, another bacterial strain that has no mercy and no limitations.  And this was on the night before travel the next day – three hours to the airport, two to hang around once we arrived, and three more hours to Miami.  Chills literally tingled down my spine for more reasons than I care to get into.  What now?

I made it through the night with bouts of hot and cold while bouncing from bed to banos getting little, if any, sleep.  The night lingered on.  

Yes, if a microscopic bacterium can bring a man down, what could something as minor as one less quarter smidgen of Ligero leaf do to a cigar’s overall taste?  Think this through.   

Morning finally arrived.  Luckily I have strong recuperative powers plus access to a healthy dose of Imodium (thank you fellow rep).  As I hopped into the van from the hotel for the trip home, I knew I would remember this to be a great tour and return a bit wiser than when I left – despite the odds.

 

 

I will push the pause button on scrolling.

I’ve decided to become a colander, a strainer, a fine mesh cloth.  I’ve made an intellectual choice. And I think in the long run, I will be better off.  My time is precious and it took me up until now to really appreciate what years I have left.  My Mom lived until she was 98 so that in theory gives me over a quarter of a century to get done what I feel I have to do.  I didn’t always think about how I waste my time, but since my Mom passed, the thought is running through my gray matter every day.  I read more now than I have in the past. The number of magazines, newspapers, books, pamphlets, I receive on a monthly basis might sound like a lot, but I’ll bet you I’ve just scratched the surface.  For instance, I just began to receive The Art Newspaper, a U.K. monthly periodical that is considered a journal of record that reports on the world of art.  It’s quite hefty in size, as is the subscription price. But when I received my first monthly edition, Vol. XXIX, Number 317, November 2019, I was immediately adrift in news about art from New York to Paris to London and quite frankly the entire international art scene.  I was in heaven. Wispy clouds to sit upon, a cigar in the ashtray, and the brain in high gear. I was using my time the way I believe what God intended it to be used for – absorbing knowledge.  

I bring this up because of a recent epiphany I experienced while scrolling through Facebook.  I had made what I thought was a rather humorous come back to what was meant to be a comment about a stroll down memory lane upon walking into one of the oldest cigar shops in a major city.  I forgot about my retort. But then I received a very serious cerebral counter-comment that was written in response to my equally-cerebral humorous one. It was at that moment that I decided – I am wasting my time.  I am a fish in an empty bowl gasping for oxygen and near my demise.

I also came to the epiphany that smoking a cigar is so very different than scrolling through social media and is indeed not a flush of time but came to the conclusion it’s about feeling good about myself.  Unless I were to use this moment with the cigar in the way of the Samurai – By this, I mean with force, fight, and fear. (武士（または武士）は前近代日本の戦士でした。彼らは後に、最終的に江戸時代（1603〜1867年）の最高ランクの社会的カーストとなった支配的な軍事階級を作り上げました。サムライは弓矢、槍、銃などのさまざまな武器を使用していましたが、その主な武器とシンボルは剣でした。or pen.)  (google.com)

The fact that I had to recognize that my time was being frittered away not with absorbing knowledge or accomplishing anything of value, but rather simply occupying it with transient content, pictures, photos, silly memes, and subjects that I have no interest in – and actually put me into a state of intense, intellectual shock.  I was putting feathers into my brain just to fill it up so I would feel fluffy, full and forthright rather than empty and vacuous like the Bonneville Salt Flats of Utah – 30,000 acres of hard, white salt crust with nary a wisp of growth; my cerebral matter was just there – blinded by the expanse of Spectralon – the whitest of whites. 

So, for now, I will temporarily say “Good-Bye” to scrolling.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g3ENX3aHlqU