by Melody Bowen
It's amazing how much different I feel after becoming a fresh, brand-new nonsmoker just over a week ago. Despite the occasional nagging need for a ciggy, I feel great. My sense of smell is back. I notice the scents of flowers in bloom when I walk down my block, the smell of freshly mowed lawns when I drive with my windows down, and even (I'm sorry to say) the familiar doggy smell ("Whoa...you guys are funky!") when the puglets come inside after playing in wet grass... The best part is that I have more energy now. I feel compelled to go for walks after meals, even on breaks at work. I feel this desire to get healthy. Now, when the "Self" magazine comes in the mailbox, I read it to try to incorporate the diet and exercise tips into a more healthy daily routine. (I used to read the diet and exercise tips with a Killian's Irish Red in one hand and a Marlboro in the other, usually thinking, "Wow, that looks painful," or "I don't think I'm quite limber enough to do that anymore...")
The strangest change since I quit smoking, though, has been the dreams. Suddenly I'm having these incredibly realistic, wildly vivid dreams all the time. You know the feeling. You know, it's when you wake up expecting your dreams to still be in progress (The firetruck sirens are still blaring in the background, and the cute fireman is there smiling at you, and he has a big hat and a long hose and he.... um... nevermind). Um.... I digress. At any rate, my dreams have been really vivid. And not about firemen (believe it or not!). Mostly about flying, actually.
The flying dreams are doubly weird to me because I got a strange piece of junk mail today. It was an advertisement for a home study course (no, I'm not kidding) in holistics, natural healing, psychic stuff, palm reading, dream interpretation, etc. (I'm apparently on a list somewhere as a "new age" kind of girl. How that happened I have no idea. I mean, I vote Republican, for Prada's sake...) The home study course "sampler" had a sheet about "understanding your dreams of flying". I've had *lots* of dreams of flying since I quit smoking (and, no, not flying on a giant cigarette like the picture at the top of this screen), so I read over the weird home study course materials and discovered the following:
1. Flying dreams generally mean my spirit is rising higher, free of boundaries (Ahhh... doesn't that sound nice?).
2. Flying dreams mean my mind is reaching for new heights. (Wow... that's an epiphany. Who would have guessed a flying dream could mean *that*?)
3. Flying dreams mean I will achieve my ambitions easily. (For my response, I'd like to quote the immortal Bart Simpson: "What a load of crappy crap crap!")
4. Dreams of flying "aided" somehow (using an airplane, a glider, a mythical winged horse, etc.) could mean many things, from the fact that I expect recognition for accomplishments to my desire for adventure, etc. (Oh, lordy.) This one, quite frankly, was the most interesting to me because I had the weirdest flying dream of all time just a couple of days ago. In my dream, I was flying in a red barber chair. Yes, a barber chair. I got in the barber chair while I was getting a back massage, then my hairdresser slapped a bar over my lap (ala rollercoaster style) and I took off in my incredible flying barber chair. I soared high over the city screaming "Woohoooo!" and noticing the most beautiful clouds I've ever seen, which were -- no, I'm not kidding -- made out of meringue. The clouds were actually giant pies (chocolate cream, coconut cream, lemon meringue) and I was bouncing off the tops of the giant meringue clouds in my big red barber chair (sort of like Dory the fish bouncing off the backs of jellyfish in Finding Nemo). I was bouncing off the meringue clouds yelling, "Boing, boing, boing!" and having a grand old time. (Yes, I know. Weird.)
Not sure what that dream means. Maybe it means I expect recognition for accomplishments with red barber chairs or meringue pies. Maybe it means I have a sense of adventure (duh!). Maybe it means somebody slipped some funny mushrooms in my cobb salad. Maybe it means I've gone completely mental. Maybe it just means that my brain is happy to be clear of all the smoke and is free to get creative again. (Or maybe it just means I need a vacation sooner rather than later...)
Note to self: Congratulations on being a nonsmoker for nine days! One has saved approximately $30 on cigarettes, which one has enjoyed spending on a new chick-flick DVD, plus drinks at The Bayou followed by dinner at Abuelo's with Wendy and Mark. Also, one has theoretically added 18 hours to one's life. Wahoo!! Dear friends, please remind me of these facts tomorrow when I'm begging anyone and everyone for a cigarette and trying to rationalize smoking for just one more day! Remind me that no matter how wonderful that one sweet, soothing, delicious, relaxing, wonderful and magical cigarette would be, it wouldn't be worth it. (It wouldn't, would it? Right? It wouldn't? I mean... um... of course it wouldn't! No, no, no! I don't want to smoke! No smoking for me...)