Just Kids

I'm reading Patti Smith's memoir "Just Kids." I really wish I had it as an audiobook read aloud by Smith because I just love the sound of her voice.

At first I found it a little tedious. I was getting tired of reading about being hungry and living in grungy places. I'm also reading it on a Kindle and so far I worry that I am rushing through Kindle books (maybe because I rush through everything else I read on a screen?). So I tried to slow down and then I got to the part where she moved into the Chelsea Hotel. That's when I really started to enjoy myself.

Patti Smith is about 15 years older than me. It's startling to reflect on the fact that when I was in high school, trudging back and forth from Union Square to my school on 15th Street, it seems likely that I may have brushed past Patti Smith at some point. And just as her head was full of ideas of how to be an artist and find her way in the world, mine was too. I was walking along toting a dance bag and some volume of 19th century fiction and I was hungry not because I didn't have money but because I was intentionally not eating to try to fit in just a little bit more invisibly at American Ballet Theatre School.

In some ways I'm still walking along everyday wondering about how to be an artist. This past week I've been chewing on how to keep up with a writing practice. It seems like a burden right now. I want to wallow in words but I don't want to write a scene or tie up the loose ends of a character.

At breakfast yesterday as I read about Patti and Robert stringing up beads in their studio and about Patti hiring a guitar player to accompany her at her first big poetry reading, I realized I am looking at my own art from a narrow, prescribed point of view. It's important for me to have a "deliverable" to point to -- mostly for other people. "Oh, look, here is a set of short stories I've written," "Here is the first half of a novel I'm working on." Why should I care about that?

If I don't want to finish a scene, why should I? Isn't it enough to just play with words and colors and patterns for a while and see where it leads?