How the memory of cigarrettes made me feel younger

 Trying to describe my first experiences with cigarettes when it has been more than two years since I quitted is like asking an ex-alcoholic to remember how life used to be when he was drunk. I think I lost all authority in the matter and all I could now is talking about the past knowing than some how I am not the same. I put on weight, I had to learn to move my hands again, and when it comes to writing I had to learn to punctuate once more. Cigarettes were a big part of my life and ever since I decided to quit they became a distant quite voice in my memory calling me for sporadic release. And because I would not like to describe myself as a repressed person I occasionally set them free. For that I mix marihuana with tobacco and enjoy briefly the taste of my past emotions.
  Tobacco is not something I like; I stopped enjoying long time ago however I cannot deny that some of the best things in my life happened when I was a smoker. I remember being young, nothing more than a teenager, and discovering cigarettes as a forbidden pleasure. I remember how, during the summer I began to smoke, I used to spend the money my granny gave me for cutting the grass, in the tobacco shop. Going there and trying every day a different brand was a wonderful experience. I remember very well how I used to teach myself to smoke. Sometimes I wanted to be like Nick Charles, others like Marlow, but most of the times it was James Bond who used to caught my attention. James Bond knew how to smoke, he had his own tobacconist too and he even had a Romson  lighter like my granddad’s.
 The living was easy during that summer: beach, bike, boats, and cigarettes, what else could I ask for?. Every time I came back from the tobacco shop I had a different story. I had Pall Malls like the tough guys, I had Chesters like Katherine Hepburn,  I had other brands which allow my imagination to flow with the smoke of their fags. Camel was a good choice; it was strong, half Turkish half American, in my imagination that seemed quite exotic.  I also tried the English Embassy, Royal Crown and Rothmans. There was something distinctive about those three. I do not why but for a while I decided to smoke Rothmans when I came back to school the following autumn. I think it was its blue and white box that reminded of the sea. Years later when I came to England and I learnt that Rothmans was a sponsor of a sailing boat I understood why I had made that decision.