I'm not depressed, I am simply pipe depressed. I haven't wanted to have a pipe in weeks. I have had a few bowls, but mostly for fellowship's sake (that is with company). My tobacco stores are drying out, though I am taking some time to care for them. My thoughts have simply been elsewhere. When I have smoked I can only stand to smoke my personal 'magic tobacco' Black Watch. I call it my personal magic tobacco because no matter how many tobaccos I try, and no matter how delicious they are, Black Watch is the place of my continual return. It is my True Tobacco.
It is not universally well reviewed. I have shared some with many friends with hot, cold and totally ambivalent response. Yet this is the only thing I want to smoke right now. This is strange. If you follow the blog you know that I have always had an insatiable lust for new tobaccos, new blends and new experiences. Yet it seems that I am settling comfortably in (for the time being, at least) to my old standard, the first tobacco I ever really fell in love with.
I think the "depression" will go. I have felt a surge in the last two days to enjoy a pipe (though only Black Watch). Yet it seems strange to me that I can involuntarily lose interest in something that has brought me so much pleasure and thoughtful opportunity. I imagine the recent increase in volume at work and at home have contributed. Yet, there it is. Please tell me, is this experience known to you? I'm not worried (as much as I am slow to accept the idea that pipe smoking is terribly damaging, I do believe moderating it at times is productive) it just seems quite strange to me.
Where has the love gone? Russia and Rome.
In the past months I have read (or been reading) War and Peace, The Metamorphoses (Ovid), and the Brothers Karamazov. I have found them all so interesting and appealing that I have not wanted to leave my indoor room to go out and interrupt my reading with smoking. Quite interesting in deed. I won't bore you with my thoughts on the books, but sufficed to say I wouldn't draw a moment of them back and plan to look at each again in the course of my life.
I leave you with one other summer literary discover on my most recent jaunt through Walden by Thoreau:
Light-winged Smoke, Icarian bird,
Melting thy pinions in they upward flight,
Lark without song, and messenger of dawn,
Circling above the hamlets as thy nest;
or else, departing dream, and shadowy form
Of midnight vision, gathering up thy skirts;
By night star-veiling, and by day
Darkening the light and blotting out the sun;
Go thou my incense upward from this hearth,
And ask the gods to pardon this clear flame.
