I don’t smoke cigarettes any more. But I enjoyed them for decades. I bought strong, filterless smokes, and I took in so many that I know I’ve compromised some of my bronchial function. Even so, when I hear ex-smokers aver that they wished they’d never started, I disagree. The noxious habit gave me so much pleasure, company, and support that I’ll never regret its presence in my life.

My favorite times to smoke were around water. After a good cry, when my sinuses were all clean and receptive, then nicotine hit nicely. I sometimes wonder if smoking is harder for women to give up because of that – because women cry, so women can experience the intoxicating effect of smoking afterward. And oh but I enjoyed smoking in the rain. I kept the tobacco and paper dry under an umbrella or an eave or in the cup I made with my hand, and I relished the way I could send my smoky exhalation into the storm.

In the winter of 1971-2, I lived on a struggling kibbutz near Hadera. My friends and I chose a place inhabited by the most left-wing of the political parties; we wanted to experience socialism. And we did, in all its child-segregated, humorless severity. I think it’s ironic that a people known for cleanly avoiding the Black Plague were so brutish that the kibbutz they built introduced me to bronchial pneumonia, lice, gingivitis, and cold-water, uninsulated, kerosene-heated accommodations. The razor blades they dispensed were dull, the tampons were impervious, the coffee was vile. The cigarettes we bought were harsh.

But we smoked them. And we loved the lack of supervision. There were hazards all around us, and we were free to flirt with them.

Liz and I liked to climb the stacks in the hayloft. The fodder for the cows was dried peanut greens, baled and stacked in roofed areas that were barn-big and about two stories high. We had free time every afternoon and I have a delicious memory of going to the stacks more than one showery day, climbing those bales like they were soft stadium bleachers, and nestling ourselves into a corner near the top of the loft. There we’d laze, looking out over the flat land through drizzly air, searching out the rare unpicked peanut and eating it, smoking.

We’re probably not allowed to smoke around hay here. Too bad. Because of course: it’s in conditions like those that you pay attention and take care.