AshesToAshes

I am participating in a members show, organized by the Washington Projects for the Arts/Corcoran (WPA/C) called 9×10 at the WIlliam Parker Gallery, in DC and I will be exhibiting 3 cigarette paintings there (2 shown in this post, third is shown on the previous post). The show opens on Friday night 6-8pm and I’ll be there. I will take donations of cigarettes!

I’m feeling great – I am missing cigarettes less and less and I guess more importantly I am learning how to deal with not having any i.e. I am learning new behavioral skills. I’ve noticed if I have any cause for elation of mood (excitement, happiness, whatever) I really want to inhale smoke. I don’t know what normal people do when they are happy or want to celebrate. I guess I will have to ask some “normal” people. Bizarre! Now when I have cause to feel down or in bad mood, I am more inclined to blame that on not having cigarettes – now sometimes that may be true I could indeed be missing a cigarette but I think other times I am in just plain old bad mood and that temper really is mine. Could I have smoked so long that I hid behind a smokescreen? Every aspect of dealing with life had become a reason to have a cigarette not something to deal with….I really need to think more about this….I think I’ll start carrying a notebook with me to write down when I have an “urge” to have a cigarette – I am sure that will reveal a lot of my character.

Now that one entire month has passed I feel like I’ve grown up all of a sudden… like a boy who graduates from wearing short pants to long pants! What I mean by that is – well I’ve got through the worst of nicotine withdrawal and now I just have to make sure I stay the course. Right now it feels like a responsibility. I feel good and while I do get the longing for a cigarette I can say No and the urge does go away fairly soon. The headaches have disappeared too – I’m glad for that and my only physical complaint right now is that I have had swollen ankles for the last few evenings – swollen enough that I have got a little bit anxious about them. Today I’m making sure that I am drinking plain old simple tap water, one glass on the hour for the rest of the evening. I was drinking fizzy water with orange juice but I did read somewhere that carbonated water causes water retention.
Both Prem & I went for a meal at the French restaurant Le Palais in Kentlands for our anniversary and we had a wonderful meal there. Of course French food needs good wine so we did have a bottle – that was my first drink in four weeks. Beforehand, I was really worried that I would have nicotine cravings from drinking alcohol but it didn’t happen. Wonderful. I think I’ll keep drinking confined to that type of setting for a while. That’s pretty easy though since I have a new fascination with food …and of course that brings me to the subject of weight….
I’ve put on a few pounds and I am not happy about it. I am playing tennis everyday and once I am creating artwork I am standing and that is quite active. I’ve been eating fairly well except that I am partial to chocolate (big time!) and a Starbuck’s breakfast sausage, egg & cheddar breakfast sandwich. So it looks like I’ve put on about 6 pounds – it is really hard to say because our scale (our brand new one from Bed, Bath & Beyond) oftentimes gives me three totally different readings one after another, but having said that when it has bad news to impart it’s pretty consistent. But looking on the bright side – some of that weight could be attributed to muscle because of the amount of exercise I am doing – I hope.
Did I mention that I have started Yoga? I’ve always wanted to do Yoga so I started last Monday. I am the stiffest person you can meet so it will be interesting to see how I progress. Rigor mortis usually sets in after a few minutes of sitting on a leg but my goal is to learn to sit lotus or yogi style as long as they don’t have to break my hips bones to do it!
And my big news is that I have received not one, but three last cigarettes and I am very grateful for that. I am also expecting another one very soon. Now that is exciting!

I’ve updated the site with more photos of artwork I’ve done over the last few weeks. More to come. Click on “Artwork on this site” on the right to see all posts that have associated artwork.
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Washington City Paper published an article on my project yesterday. Check out the online article here. One correction though, I do have a Dublin accent (yes – I never lost it – my husband is Guyanese and speaks with a West Indian accent so I have never picked up an American accent) but I really thought I spoke in soft dulcet tones and not a deep, voice mellowed with nicotine! When I first read the article I went oh no – but now I think it is funny.
Seriously though – I do hope that the newspaper article encourages people to send me their cigarettes. It really would add value & meaning to this project. I do have three promises of last cigarettes so that is fantastic.
As for smoking or not smoking – I think I’ve made some real progress the last few days. I went to practice tennis in one of those half courts with a wall the day before yesterday and found myself looking forward to a grapefruit! What a change from a few weeks ago and am happy with that. Also, what I call the “tingling of the tongue” has disappeared. I think this sensation set in after the first few days. It was constantly there and accompanied by an insatiable urge to put something in my mouth. I still want to put something in my mouth but not all the time now.
Went to the Harp & Fiddle in Bethesda last night to meet up with friends. I did fine but there really is only so much diet coke you can drink! I was more than ready to go home after three hours. While most of these particular friends are smokers, we were sitting inside so I didn’t have to deal with any real temptation. I must say they are all really supportive of my quit. Anand who was out with us last night, picked up several copies of the City Paper for me as soon as he got back home to DC. Thanks Anand!

I actually wrote this on Day 17 but it still applies today…. Day 23

If I rub it (my head that is) it goes away for few minutes and I feel good.
But then soon, it’s back again.
It’s not exactly whining – it’s like a soft whisper now reminding me that I should have one now.
It doesn’t cause any pain….
It doesn’t even feel angry now…
It almost feels like it is disappointed in me…
It definitely feels sad
And honestly I feel sad that it just won’t go away
I wish for it to leave me alone
Because the persistency of this thing is wearisome…

I have made it to 21 days! At this point in time all nicotine should be out of my system but I’m not sure that that is the case. For about five days now I’ve had headaches – like something pressing against the front of my forehead. These headaches appear mid-morning and go on for most of the day – they are not really bad – just there. Apart from that, yes I’m still getting cravings but less frequently and I guess they are easier to deal with. It’s simple really – the answer is NO, No, No – tough luck, NO. No – you can’t have a cigarette! How many ways are there to say NO! Never! Most of the time it is easy to say NO now, but there are just sometimes…

I went to Toronto for the weekend for my husband’s cousin’s daughter’s wedding. No alcohol, no smoking – for me at least. At times it was a struggle but on the other hand I enjoyed not having to “sneak” out for a cigarette. I think I’ve actually become more sociable in that my mind is not concentrating on looking for the next opportunity to get outside for a smoke. So now I finally understand what Freedom from Smoking actually means and you know what, I am happy to say it feels good and I am really proud of myself.

The funny thing about the weekend was the airport experience and what a trigger that turned out to be for wanting a cigarette. I was actually looking forward to this trip – there would be no hustling to get that last cigarette in before going through security and no counting the minutes to landing …What a pleasure it should have been! Normally, I would have a cigarette or two outside the airport, I would have tucked my cigarette lighter somewhere where I hoped TSA personnel wouldn’t find it and get on the plane. The rest of the journey would be spent blanking out time, waiting for that moment to get outside the airport at the other end. Well this time, I knew that there were not going to any cigarettes at either end and yet I behaved as though there would be. I was extremely irritable as well – the most irritable I’ve been since I quit smoking. I was hankering for a cigarette at all the “old” opportunities and even thought of hiding my non-existent lighter! Conditioning, I guess. Bizarre and sad!

I have completed another image of Destruction. Again it is a collage of burnt watercolor paper soaked in cigarette butts and sprayed with nicotine “dye” i.e. cigarette butts soaked in water over a few weeks. I am going to continue on this vein for a while – it is theraputic and disgusting at the same time.
The images will be on view at DCAC Wall Mountables, 2007 Adams Morgan DC until Sept. 7th.
See for diections.

Sorry – I haven’t been writing as much as I thought I would. Allow me to self-indulgent for last week and this week coming. I’m just trying to cope I guess. According to my friends on the American Lung Association (LUNGUSA), week 1 is called Hell week and week 2 is Heck week. By the way things are going I think they are right.
Last week was bizarre. On one hand there are the withdrawal symptoms, which were strong for the first three-four days and the worst thing was the kind of numbness in the brain and the long playing record telling me to go have just one cigarette. By the end of the week (Friday I think) that had improved somewhat but when I got a craving it really took me by surprise more. Lunchtime for some reason is my worst time. I seem to go on craving for a couple of hours. I wonder is that because my lungs were tanked up with nicotine (I was a very heavy smoker in the morning) and by lunchtime had reached a peak. Heaven knows.
On the other hand by the end of the week I was experiencing a kind of euphoria – full of motivation, surge of energy, feeling success, meeting deadlines and getting rewards – all with the help of my friends on LUNGUSA. They really helped me along that first week!

Week two has started off pretty ok – just got a bit down this afternoon. I started a book binding class at the Corcoran College of Art & Design and I should be thrilled. I had been wondering about the drive there and how I would cope with it – normally I would have smoked 3 cigarettes in the car on the way there, 1 at break time and another 3 on the way back (and that’s not mentioning the 2-3 cigarettes I would have had before leaving the house). Anyway, I actually did fine which surprised me. I started getting withdrawal symptoms about 11.30am, so they were followed by these deep sighs in the classroom (they sound like sighs that someone makes to let you know they are very irritated at you). I’m sure they are not really the deep breathing exercises suggested by LungUSA but they seem to do the trick for me.
I need to complete some artwork I started last week so tomorrow I finish one piece and post it here. Busy days but this week I need to get my focus back. My head still feels fuzzy but I think I just have to be a little bit harder on myself to get going.
Sitting on the sofa reading the LungUSA posts is good but not all the time.

You know I think you can only be lucid about cigarette smoking when you have decided that you have stopped. All day today I have asked why I smoked for so long and why I allowed it to control me so. The only satisfaction I got is that I realized I am an addict – both physically & psychologically addicted to cigarette smoking. In all the years that I have been smoking I never considered myself an addict – sure I recognized at times that I was addicted to nicotine but to label me an addict would be to go way to far … or would it? Do non-smokers (I mean people who have never smoked) look on smokers as addicts? If people drink too much, or even allow their next drink to control how their day goes, you would definitely label that person an alcoholic, the substance abuse person who might sneak around looking for his/her next fix would also be labeled an addict. And yet I have never heard of a cigarette smoker being called an addict or a smokeaholic. He/she is termed as having a “habit” of smoking and is addicted to nicotine. I can tell you I have a very bad habit of slouching on the sofa and when I considered that it might be causing some discomfort in my chest I moved to an upright chair and haven’t sat there since – I don’t miss sitting on the sofa to the extent that I cannot think of anything else, am almost nonfunctional and simply want the day to just disappear.

Today I couldn’t think of anything else but a cigarette because I am an ADDICT. I read much to that effect in Allen Carr’s book yesterday but it really didn’t hit home. I was optimistic that it would be easy to quit this time because I felt I was so well prepared, that I was taking control and I wasn’t “giving up” a thing – indeed I have everything to gain. So today, when I couldn’t concentrate on a thing with my woolly head I allowed myself just to draw what came instinctively and in that process the realization fully hit that I am indeed an addict. That was shocking to me. I have never thought of it before that way. The thing is, it is socially acceptable to be a cigarette addict and your friends probably don’t see it that way. I will keep that for my next post tomorrow. I’m tired.

So for that reason I am now on Day 1 of recovery. What a long day it has been – the minutes have crept by like hours and I’m looking forward to the oblivion of sleep.

Overall it has been easy to say no today. I just have to say no everyday.
Having said that, any other time I gave up smoking, Day 1 was always the easiest.
My artwork for today was not what I hoped to do but it helped me while away the day: