Our church has always been a unique place. It is small, it is Anglican, it is family. We worship with liturgical gusto. Afterward, we gather outside on the patio for our “second liturgy”: conversations of all topics, jokes, sarcasm, inevitable laughter, beer (on tap in the Parish Hall), and the men smoke cigars and pipes. Well, until I joined them on Easter Sunday this year; we smoked on the playground under the refuge of oak trees to escape the blistering sun. (Don’t worry — the kids were playing inside.) I didn’t feel like “one of the guys”; I just felt welcome.
It all started around November 2010, which was during autumn — my favorite of the two seasons in Houston. I remember a particularly cool, crisp, blue sky day. I walked out through the red doors, squinted and smiled into the sunlight, and pulled up a chair to the patio table full of friends. Fragrant white wisps of smoke swirled and hovered above our heads like the Holy Ghost. I closed my eyes and inhaled. Pipe tobacco has always been one of my favorite smells, but that day, the aroma of cigars caught my attention for the first time even though the men had smoked ‘em ever since my husband and I joined the church. All my life I’d had the notion that cigars reeked, but what I quickly figured out was that our menfolk were cigar connoisseurs. Week after week, I sniffed and asked many questions.
I showed enough interest that our friends offered me a cigar now and again. I hesitated at first. For one thing, I was the only female interested in a stogie. For another, I nearly coughed up a lung in high school trying one of my ex’s cigarettes. My chest burned as if charred by fire and I thought surely it was fatal. Apparently, I just wasn’t cool enough.
But after careful instruction from the men at church, and assurance that cigars were much different than a Marlboro (you do not inhale hellfire and brimstone into your precious lungs), I put serious thought to giving their patio pastime a try. I was six months past an epic surgery to remove endometriosis from my innards; I was literally a new person. I wasn’t shy anymore. I wasn’t as fearful. I was sassy and teased my friends good-naturedly. I was grateful, joyful. Colors were brighter. Illness, suffering, and surgery changed me and rewired my soul and senses, including my olfactory attentions.
So one evening at home I asked my husband, “May I try a cigar? Deacon Dave recommended a Fuente Hemingway Short Story. I mean, it’s even literary like me.” Johnny smiled and said yes, though silently he thought he’d have to hold back my hair while I puked.
He carried my wooden rocking chair and a breakfast nook chair out to our back patio, and reminded me how to smoke: take a draw but don’t inhale, then exhale, and do so slowly. I did not hurl, and I enjoyed the sweet-woodsy taste and warm smell. I was a bit concerned that I “didn’t do it right,” but it turns out I just smoked a cigar like me, a woman. I immediately knew that I would forever enjoy a good cigar.
Johnny and I began to smoke cigars regularly, which was not only the beginning of our back patio liturgy, but also another form of marital intimacy. It seems right and good that such a mutual pleasure would begin in the culture of our home — during warm Texas nights with cool breezes; our Drummond red maple rustling; our heads tipped upward to stargaze in a suburban sky; airplanes gliding overhead; sipping whiskey or bourbon; wind chimes singing lullabies. We often talked late into the night, long after our neighbors turned off their back porch twinkle lights.
Not everyone approved of my newfound hobby in light of potential health risks, and my femininity. I did listen; I understood their concerns, I prayed, and consulted with my husband as well as a few knowledgeable friends. As far as health, I absorb very little nicotine when I smoke a cigar and they are not addictive. Health risks will always and forever surround us. I don’t mean to impart fear or sound simplistic, but we risk our lives any time we drive a car, walk outdoors to air pollution, eat processed foods, or partake of the latest cancer-causing ingredient to shriek across news headlines. As best as I’m able, I enjoy my life to the fullest, which includes ignoring fear, even the fear of what may or may not cause illness or death. My joy also requires that I live not based on every person’s opinion of what I’m doing, but that of the Still Small Voice. If it is not sin, it is not sin.
As far as my femininity, my husband and several friends assured me that the pleasure of cigars is not only masculine, and that I smoke elegantly, and even with sensuality (says Johnny). Besides, I’ve seen photographs of women walking the streets of Cuba (and elsewhere) smoking cigars along the way — perfectly normal in their country. I’m always happy to discover when a girlfriend smokes cigars, too. And I discovered my love for the Lancero size — long and slender. It’s a bit silly, but I pretend that I possess the ultimate elegance of Audrey Hepburn with her cigarette holder in Breakfast at Tiffany’s. Male or female, inhabitants of any country, and even religious types may enjoy cigars, plain and simple. Oh, and on Mary Karr’s Facebook page, I saw a photograph of her smoking a cigar. She’s female and awesome, from Texas, and one of my favorite authors. If that’s not validation, I don’t know what is.
We did find other folks besides church parishioners who approved of our love for cigars. A friend invited me and Johnny to a Zino promotional event at Santa Barbara Cigars. I hadn’t seen my friend in several years, so I thought we’d enjoy catching up with him and his fiancé (The Smoking Hot Cigar Chick, no less) and enjoy a good cigar, but Johnny and I were taken aback. Our “patio fellowship” unfolded in that cozy, smoky lounge; an instant camaraderie clicked between strangers. As Johnny and I walked around the rustic, aromatic humidor, we met all kinds of people — of different religions, political platforms, careers, budgets, and so forth. Whenever we explained that we were newbies still trying various cigars, the kindest of men recommended their favorites, excellent quality of all price ranges. One man even purchased a very expensive cigar for Johnny — an Illusione MJ12 — merely because the man loved it so much; he wanted to share that joy. My friend shared a bottle of Willett bourbon with us and those who circled and talked around his table. The generosity in that place was astounding.
Santa Barbara’s owner, Kenny, was quiet-mannered, but very welcoming and helpful. The Zino representative recommended for me a Platinum Low Rider (a full-bodied natural wrapper) based on my preferences even though up until that night Johnny and I had only smoked Maduros — dark, rich, chocolatey wrappers. We love dark roast coffee, dark chocolate, brown ales and stouts, and now, dark cigars. But that Low Rider, and education from the rep and my friends, opened my eyes to the wide variety of tobaccos, wrappers, geographical regions, and the artistry of rolling and sealing cigars by hand. The names of cigars are like poetry: Joya de Nicaragua, Romeo y Julieta, Tatuaje (“tattoo”), an Arturo Fuente Work of Art, Kristoff, Onyx, Macanudo, Casa Magna, and so on. The cigar bands are tiny works of art, too; I save them in the pocket of my Moleskine notebook for some future artistic project.
Cigar events are a surprising, sincere experience of community, but our two patios are special. Church is familial; our home is intimate, and hospitable if we invite a few friends over to enjoy the blessing and pleasure of cigars and spirits. We pull out a few more breakfast nook chairs, go a little redneck and use our cooler for a table — the drink holders cradling fine whiskey glasses — and talk and laugh as the sun sets.
Lest you think I am merely a smoke-fiend, ‘tis not so. Cigars are intertwined with my love for the great outdoors. Jokingly, I think of myself as the “Nature Cigar Chick.” Mine and Johnny’s typical back patio liturgy begins between 8:30-9:00 pm, which right now displays either a glorious sunset or a cool, dark sky. The moon often creates the illusion of daylight, casting a dark tree-shadow on glowing green grass. Lately we’ve been enjoying inexpensive but excellent no-name Dominican Maduros from a local shop and different bottles of bourbon. We draw on our cigars, sip our bourbon neat, and watch the clouds, which for me is always a depiction of God’s mysterious creation of time. The puffs of condensation seem to float by slowly, but if I turn my head for a few minutes, the sky may suddenly be clear, sharing the stars. “With the Lord one day is as a thousand years, and a thousand years as one day.”
Our liturgy causes us to slow down. You don’t hork down a cigar; you draw and exhale at intervals. I’ve been told that “pipes are the pen of the mind.” I’ve found the same of cigars; they are meditative. As a breeze brushes across my cheek and cigar smoke curls upward, very often a prayer lifts to my mind. Or I’ll read part of Compline on my iPhone. I’ve hummed and sung Bon Iver songs, and hymns. Conversations with my husband dig deeper. As we enjoy the different flavors of the beginning, middle, and end of our cigars, and the same pace of our liturgy, the neighborhood gets quieter as do we. A cicada choir belts out an operatic benediction. “Be still,” I recall. We feel grateful for the incense of cigars and nightcaps aged in wooden barrels. Before we acquired my late aunt’s blue glass flowered ash tray, I smudged out my cigars on the concrete in the shape of a cross. Now we dump our ashes in the outdoors trash can. Either way, I can’t help but remember, “Ashes to ashes, dust to dust.” We walk into our house, lay our heads down in peace, and dwell in safety. Another day to come, and another patio liturgy.