Travels with Patti
by
Patti Smith (Goodreads Author)
Not your standard memoir.
Beautifully descriptive and poignant writing. Smith has truly imbued herself into the pages of the book--I felt as a silent companion during her many journeys and life experiences.
She is transparent yet complicated, emotional and accessible. She lives a fairly simple, sometimes routined external life (wardrobe, coffee and book shops). Her internal life is colorful, questioning, philosophical, sentimental, thoughtfully expressive. Her yearning for connection, closure and experiencing art and its creators drives her to travel all over the world: Morocco, the English countryside, Suriname and French Guiana, Venice Beach, Rockaway Beach, Kyoto, Iceland, Berlin.
She seems isolated at times and often alone, but her friends are unique people who share her penchant for reverence, artists and writers--those who suffered but created meaning and expression.
Beautifully descriptive and poignant writing. Smith has truly imbued herself into the pages of the book--I felt as a silent companion during her many journeys and life experiences.
She is transparent yet complicated, emotional and accessible. She lives a fairly simple, sometimes routined external life (wardrobe, coffee and book shops). Her internal life is colorful, questioning, philosophical, sentimental, thoughtfully expressive. Her yearning for connection, closure and experiencing art and its creators drives her to travel all over the world: Morocco, the English countryside, Suriname and French Guiana, Venice Beach, Rockaway Beach, Kyoto, Iceland, Berlin.
She seems isolated at times and often alone, but her friends are unique people who share her penchant for reverence, artists and writers--those who suffered but created meaning and expression.
It's a somewhat small but very deep circle of like-minded souls.
During her travels (pilgrimages) she takes black and white Polaroids, which she says are akin to baseball cards or tarots-marking and recording her almost-ritual like experiences: paying homage to deceased writers and poets. But the Polaroids are also part of the ritual and reverence--a step in the process, along with prayer and incense or candles.
Whether home or far away coffee shops and cafes are the comfort zone she flocks to. Places where she can enjoy flavors and sights while writing ideas on napkins. These places are a sort of studio for her, where she marinates and stews over conundrums and stories, revelations or observances--because she wants to be a writer (although she already is one and that "all writers are bums").
Poetry and musings on napkin
She tells of us her losses and feelings of loss or need to (re)connect: with those who have passed on; beloved items gone missing; damage to property; the closing down of her favorite coffee cafe.
She writes "I'm going to remember everything and then I'm going to write it all down. An aria to a coat. A requiem for a cafe. That's what I was thinking, in my dream, looking down at my hands."
What I leave you with? I hope we each find our own haven--our own Cafe 'Inn, and a way to express ourselves in a fulfilling, meaningful and authentic way--whether that be the written or spoken word, song, dance, painting, photography, acting, volunteer work, or another form. This memoir has inspired me to strive towards that.
During her travels (pilgrimages) she takes black and white Polaroids, which she says are akin to baseball cards or tarots-marking and recording her almost-ritual like experiences: paying homage to deceased writers and poets. But the Polaroids are also part of the ritual and reverence--a step in the process, along with prayer and incense or candles.
Jean Genet's grave, Larache, Morocco (from M Train)
Poetry and musings on napkin
She writes "I'm going to remember everything and then I'm going to write it all down. An aria to a coat. A requiem for a cafe. That's what I was thinking, in my dream, looking down at my hands."
What I leave you with? I hope we each find our own haven--our own Cafe 'Inn, and a way to express ourselves in a fulfilling, meaningful and authentic way--whether that be the written or spoken word, song, dance, painting, photography, acting, volunteer work, or another form. This memoir has inspired me to strive towards that.
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