This past weekend, the singer and songwriter Leonard Cohen celebrated his 80th birthday – with a cigarette. Last year, he announced that he would resume smoking when he turned 80. “It’s the right age to recommence,” he explained….
Our culture of aging is one of extremes. You are either healthy and executing vigorous efforts to build your health account, or you are dying. And yet, as we start to “ache in the places where [we] used to play,” as one of Mr. Cohen’s songs puts it, we want to focus on the present.
Source: Jason Karlawish in The New York Times, September 20
Eric Koch’s new book, New Beginnings, was launched on September 20. The book is available from 
Cohen said it so well here, in My Life In Robes
After a while
You can’t tell
If it’s missing
A woman
Or needing a cigarette
And later on
If it’s night
Or day
Then suddenly
You know
The time
To get dressed
You go home
You light up
You get married.
(From Leonard Cohen, Book of Longing)
How beautiful are his words
When not soiled by his music.
I wish I could say Hallellujah to that, Morry, but I can’t!
Ouch! What would the rest of us want to (ache to?) recommence at the age of 80? 90? 100?
From “The Betrothed” by Rudyard Kipling….. And a woman is only a woman, but a good Cigar is a Smoke.