4 SEPTEMBER, 2021

Dear Harry,

It’s Saturday. I’m looking forward to sitting out on our balcony this afternoon and lighting up my weekly La Gloria cigar.

It’s a treat that I allow myself. You’ll be pleased to hear that I finally managed to give up smoking cigarettes in my fiftieth year—a few decades sooner than yourself. I had been trying for years. Had tried everything, from patches to nicotine chewing gum to hypnosis. Nothing worked. Until I decided to take a positive approach. I stopped telling myself, No, shouldn’t, mustn’t, can’t and so on, and tried giving myself permission to light up but choosing, instead, the benefits that came with not smoking: the ability to climb a flight of stairs without panting for breath, for example, and having clothes that didn’t stink of stale tobacco. The list was long. It didn’t hurt, too, that Sarah, from her earliest years, kept nagging me insistently to stop.

Like you, I was addicted. But I managed to quit. I haven’t smoked a cigarette since 1986.

A while ago, however, I gave myself permission to enjoy the occasional hit of nicotine with a cigar. Just for the pleasure of it. I don’t believe I ever saw you smoking one of these. The cigarettes you smoked were mostly those you rolled yourself. I say “rolled,” but you had all kinds of ways of making them, all kinds of little intricate machines. I think the making was as much a part of the fun for you as lighting up and smoking, but you were happy to kid yourself that the shredded tobacco you used was less harmful to the health than store-bought cigarettes. Still, I’m sure they did you no good. I’m glad you had the good sense it took—and the love!—to quit the nasty habit when you understood that it was harming Peggy.

Knowing of my addiction, I ration myself to one a week—though sometimes, I’ll admit, I manage to sneak in a second one if no one else is counting. No smoking in the house, of course, these days, but the weather here in Southern California is rarely a deterrent. I slip out onto the balcony or the patio behind the cottage and enjoy my smoke as I complete a New York Times Sunday crossword. (That was never one of your addictions, was it? In that we differ…)

Am I addicted? Maybe. Bust a little. Is that like being a little bit pregnant? Maybe. But I figure, well, at this stage of my life it won’t kill me.

See you out on the balcony, then, Peter