Even when given two chapters of Just Kids to focus on, the idea of Patti Smith feels too large, too massive to tackle. Looking back at my marginalia, the passages I underlined, scribbled next to, starred and check marked, I could see writing posts about Smith’s representation of gender and androgyny, the artist, even her descriptions of a New York that no longer feels real or even possible. I’m listening to Horses, my personal introduction to Smith years ago, for inspiration. But Smith exists in multitudes and we haven’t quite gotten to her transformation into the “Godmother of Punk” (thought it’s foreshadowed) in the text. Patti Smith is still just a kid.
I’ll try to focus on something more tangible.
Smith’s writing, on a sentence level, is beautiful. It’s romantic. It feels soft and delicate. And, for me, it’s most poignant when she describes her trinkets, her treasures, the things with which she surrounds herself. Her childhood comes alive when she describes the objects she coveted. Her story about Stephanie, a young friend dying of leukemia, though full of sadness and guilt, shows how a simple list of things can also describe the person who owned them and the moment in which they lived. Smith describes Stephanie’s treasures, “In her old cigar box were all the talismanic charms of 1953: a roulette wheel, a typewriter, and ice skater, the red Mobil winged horse, the Eiffel Tower, a ballet slipper, and charms in the shape of all forty-eight states” (7).
Some objects also have power and strength that they give to their possessor. I’m thinking of the Persian necklace purchased by Robert Mapplethorpe before the two even knew one another: “The necklace was passed back and forth throughout the years. Ownership was based on who needed it most” (51). Objects can become symbols, not only in literature, but also in our own lives. It’s important that Robert picks out her favorite necklace when he was still a stranger; the necklace becomes a symbol of their quiet understanding of one another as well as their mutual yearning to keep each other safe.
These treasures that Smith describes are not representations of greed or consumerism, but of memory, love, and art. Maybe the artist can transform the mundane into art because the artist can see the life and importance others cannot. Things that might be deemed worthless can be the most important. Like the “marbleized candy dish with a purple cow lid” Robert becomes fond of when visiting Smith’s parents house: “He was delighted with it, so much so that years later, after he died, it was found displayed among his most valuable Italian vases” (52).
Smith gives every single object weight and importance, and it made me think about the objects in my own life; the things that I brought from California when I came to Bryn Mawr; the things that I continue to move from dorm room to dorm room, from apartment to apartment: a wind-up music box, a red mug with a chipped lid, a tin full of magnets.
At the very beginning of the book, I thought she would value her talismans all throughout her life, and so I was slightly surprised when she willingly left some of her stuff, including her portfolio, as she went from place to place. I’d attributed this to the environment, as she couldn’t very well take every little thing with her because of the lack of room in her home or because there was just too much for her too carry. But she didn’t really seem to blink an eye as she left her portfolio of artwork, the little lamb pull toy. I would’ve never been able to let go of the things I valued, like my clothing, my computer, my past certificates of achievement in school, as superficial as this all sounds. Their value to me, because they were mine, plus my inherent materialism, make me unwilling to part with them, even though I could easily replace most of those things.
Looking back, I realized that she wasn’t and couldn’t be materialistic. As she kept roaming around the city, she needed to drop all that could be dropped and take only whatever was necessary. But perhaps her artwork really hadn’t meant that much to her. She is not known for her artwork but rather as a musician–an artist, in that sense. From a young age she knew she wanted to be an artist, but she simply floated through the vibrant scene of New York, doing some art here and there. It was Mapplethorpe who’d been so devoted to his artwork. Her leaving the artwork as well as the lamb pull toy are quite symbolic in that she seemed to be leaving that part of her life behind to keep moving forward and taking the world as it came. Her artwork was a certain phase in her life, before the music and songwriting came in; the lamb pull toy was her time in the Chelsea. She couldn’t burden herself with things from the past. In order to truly find herself, she had to leave behind whatever identities she’d had, such as when she cut her hair to get rid of her “folk look,” the hairstyle she’d kept since she was a teenager. She was shedding the unsuccessful past as she moved along, emptying her palate to fill it up once again. Maybe she wouldn’t empty it completely every time, as remnants of the places she’d been to, the people she’d met, would still influence her, especially the secret for improvisation that she’d learned from Sam Shepard. Eventually, she’d gather enough color, mix them together, and become the person she is today.