Patti Smith

Driving North on Hwy 97 the desert turns to forest and snow falls softly over the Mt Hood Pass. I am going to Portland.
It's still winter and a good time for being alone. Good time to drink tea, clean house, and listen to the radio. But this was last week when I was cleaning my house listening to Fresh Air.

Terri Gross was interviewing Patti Smith. They were discussing her recently published memoir of her formative years, "Just Kids." In was the background between dishes and vacuuming I caught her story: a twenty-something New Jersey girl dropping out of college and heading to New York City, making lifelong friends, transforming beatnik poetry into something prepunk and becoming the iconic "white-shirt black-tie" image of youthful angst in the seventies and eighties.
Patti Smith did not instantly fascinate me. She was dry. She had a rough South Jersey accent and talked slowly and almost irritably.

They played Horses and Birdland. I had never heard these songs before and I liked them.
Patti brought up her various experiences with death.

"Each of us, you know, leaves in a different way according to the person - according to the energy of the person - the way the spirit manifests. Each of us dies differently and I believe we have a unique journey. Whether it's a journey of pure energy, if there's any intelligence within the journey but I think each of us has our own way of dissipating or entering into the new field."

"Horses" Patti Smiths first record plays over and over as I drive. I begin to connect with the words and by the time I hit Gresham I am singing along.
Her voice is ugly and so am I.
The music makes no sense to me. I make no sense to me.

In Portland I celebrate getting into town by getting lost. At the Bagdad Theater I am close to a nervous breakdown from the drive. I drink the darkest beer on draft, turn in my ticket, receive my edition of "Just Kids," and a find a seat to the pack venue. An MC introduces Pattie Smith and she comes out tall and thin and takes her place in front of the microphone.

Why am I here?

There is something in Patti Smith which I need in this time of my life. I wanted to learn from her something I can not do. And what is that? Dealing with her pain. Through her I wanted to learn how she carried it.

"Let go of the spirit of the departed and experience your life's celebration. Time heals all wounds isn't true, we just learn how to walk with them. We learn that some days we're going to feel intense pain all over again & we just have to say, 'ok, I know you - you can come along with me today.'"

As I draw in the margins of her book Patti Smith is talking of the summer she turned 23 - the same age as me. My copy of the book is imperfect. The paper on the inside of the cover is crumpled. Patti Smith is talking to my pain.

I want it all to come together, this whole experience - Patti Smith, my life, the hard stuff. "That's ridiculous," I think as I gaze up at my newly adopted patron saint of youthful troubles. It's her slow irritable voice which drew me here - that is what speaks to me. It speaks to the dark parts and coerces them out. The voice replaces my desperate worrisome chatter and it talks me down.

"You can come along with my today," she tells them - I tell them. You can sit on my shoulder like a heavy cumbersome bird as I cook in my kitchen, make my tea, and lie next to my partner. I won't shuffle you around the contents of my head but I won't stare you in the eyes, today. You can come along with me.

Patti Smith is so many people's personal goddess. Looking around at the Bagdad Theater and as people step up to ask their questions people are almost bowing. If there were a table for it the audience would likely place icons and animal sacrifices.

Patti Smith spoke strong words for a lot of peoples hard times: homosexuals and women and disillusioned youth. And now she speaks for mine.