Moving On

i love patti smith. don't know if you knew that, but i do. i thought my lack of attention for gilbert's book was due to the fact that it leads in no way to my own work in a tough, heavy reading and writing semester. but it turns out i just wasn't relating to it. and i don't have the ability to read something i can't relate to right now...maybe i'll finish it early summer. last night i was browsing the bookstore next door (did i tell you an indy bookstore opened next door to us?), and i decided to splurge for my birthday and buy patti smith's just published memoir, just kids. i had been yearning for it. reading the reviews and listening to interviews. i always listen to her music on my walks.

it snowed today and i curled up and began to devour the story of her youth. it's wonderful--at least to me and no doubt to those who relish her music and art. it makes me nostalgic for the days when i lived with friends in downtown knoxville when it was a shell of a city. it felt like we were the only people there--and we kind of were, especially at night. those experiences and couple of years were tiny compared to the scale of new york city that p.s. lived in the 70s. but what makes her book so beautiful is that she taps into the existence of marginalized youth: those of us who didn't quite fit in--politically, intellectually, or religiously--and found little underground worlds of acceptance. she captures the biggest, most glamorous of the satellite worlds that many youth would later attempt to emulate. i among them.