Just kids

"Who can know the heart of youth but youth itself?" - Patti Smith keeping me grounded and reminding me that as cool as I am, I am an adult. I am separate.

Lately, there has been a lot of talk about Eat Pray Love. I'm not going to jump on the hater band wagon (even though it is a super tempting one), because I'm trying to live in a zen world where I let people read what they want without judgment.

For some, EPL touches a nerve of self awakening and the book is applauded for depicting a feminine search for self. For me, this assertion makes a dangerous assumption. Why do we assume that female identity foraging should look and be like a masculine quest? Why do we need to gender label it at all? I can't think of anything more personal or individualized than figuring out who you are.

For me, EPL is a little to self-help-y. See? I'm trying really hard.

However, I came across a book that is my EPL.


Just Kids, Patti Smith's memoir of her own youth and time with Robert Mapplethorpe, is art. Patti's words mesmerized me. I feel for her yearning in life, I feel for her search for focus, I feel for her rebellion.

"Some of us are born rebellious. Reading the story of Zelda Fitzgerald by Nancy Milford, I identified with her mutinous spirit. I remember passing shopwindows with my mother and asking why people didn't just kick them in. She explained that there were unspoken rules of social behavior, and that's the way we coexist as people. I felt instantly confined by the notion that we are born into a world where everything was mapped out by those before us."

I own Milford's Zelda story, but haven't read it. I think I need to now. Patti's words of her life, hopes and dreams rejuvenated me on my own artistic path. Like her, I dabble. I always have a new project I invest my creative energy in.

Sometimes I write:
"It wasn't hard at all to write the play. We just told each other stories. The characters were ourselves, and we encoded our love, imagination, and indiscretions..."

Sometimes I dance:
"You can't make a mistake when you improvise."
"What if I mess it up? What if I screw up the rhythm?"
"You can't," he said. "It's like drumming. If you miss a beat, you create another."

Sometimes I read poetry:
"I wish I had tons of money. / Then I'd be free. / Free to do what? / Everything."

Her story showed me what I already know, but sometimes need to be reminded, that your path doesn't have to be conventional to be right.

"Pattie, did art get us?"
"...Perhaps it did, but no one could regret that."
Patti Smith