Mrs. Smith....the other one.

I was lucky enough to be given Patti Smith's novel "Just Kids" by a fellow traveler while in Paris...at first I was hesitant to dive into the pages of the 70's rock and roll icon, I am not an avid follower of Patti's music, or her artwork, or any other artistic venture she absorbed...I love Morrissey's cover of "Redondo Beach" and to me, anyone that brings inspiration to Stephen Morrissey must be worth their weight in silken button ups.  Aboard a long train to Zurich from Paris, I finished the book I had been reading.  Emma Donahuges biopic of a young girl in 17th century London's dark decent into prostitution and madness. "Slammerkin" was a marvelously written book and drove me straight into the old world, being in London myself, I took pride in walking through the same areas mentioned in the book, still existing a few hundred years later....anyway, I generally frown on beginning a new book less that a couple days after finishing another.  Giving my brain the necessary time to finish analyzing the last project.  But, looking around my train cabin at my near associates....a very self absorbed Parisian teenager next to me, who seemed to almost die with frustration when she learned I'd be sharing her personal space.  Across from me, two women from Salsburg on holiday, returning from Paris.  Falling asleep and awaking suddenly, they snickered at the somber American, I shot them a glance of malcontent.  Next to me, four Parisian businessmen sharing a bottle of Chablet and playing a card game I could not understand.  Removing a bottle of wine stashed in my bag, I decided it was okay to start a new reading project.  As the last book I read, the forward offered an understanding of the ending.  A preview at who or why the subject had gotten there.  The offer was somber, bleak yet strict with the idea of loss.  Opening, "Just Kids" offered a picture of Patti Smith's childhood years.  Where she came from, who she was, and why she was.  I felt a similar connection, but grew distant when she described the siblings of her youth.  Similar in age, they marched along side by side, providing a strength against imaginary woes and the speed bumps of growing up.  It wasn't until Patti moved to New York that I began to immerse myself in her story.  At the age of 19, packed with nothing more than a plaid suitcase and thirty-two dollars found in a forgotten purse inside a phone booth.  A "package from god" she made her brief commute from New Jersey to NYC.  A familiar and understood venture, to blast off at a young age and seek the unknown.  As she battled hardships, new friends, and hunger, Patti began to find herself, even if that meant that she was "Lost".  Lost until Robert Maplethorpe came into her life like a star destined to burn out, fast and hard, full of life and love.  The love that spawned from a chance encounter between Patti and Robert is like something I cannot explain.  They fueled each other, in art and life, never leaving the other a pact was made between the two souls...a beautiful understanding of why the human needs another.......Smith's novel is a tribute, and it is as beautiful as the life it seems they led.  Sitting by a stream in a small town outside Zurich, I finished the last chapter, "Holding hands with God".  A collective image of how much a life can touch another and the importance of love and understanding between humans.......Its been years since I read a book that moved me as much as the words of Mrs. Smith's, Thank you.