I have been having a bunch of thoughts about Patti Smith for a few years now, because I think she is a strange and beautiful genius who I have also noticed is obsessed with dead people in a way that I think is really rare and welcomes me to relate to death and people lost in a way that is not dark and scary, but honorary and tender
Since moving to New York in 2018, I’ve seen Patti perform three times. The first was when a friend gave me tickets to a book opening for “Year of the Monkey” that Patti hosted in a giant synagogue in Park Slope. She read from the book, but also sang songs and told people to stop asking stupid questions during the Q+A.
The next show was one of those free summer concerts in Central Park. It was late summer of 2021, the day after my sister’s wedding and the year that ended a 2 year streak of all of my grandparents dying. As I mentioned, Patti seems to love talking about death. She dedicates her songs and books to friends lost, and at this show, told stories of people who died who I did not know, but made me cry on the fake summerstage lawn, because we find our grief in other’s grief, and the same goes for expressions of love.
The last time I saw Patti Smith perform was at Joan Didion’s memorial service at The Church of St John the Divine on the upper west side, this past autumn. I found out about the memorial, which was free and open to the public, through Patti’s newsletter day-of. [[[By the way, her “newsletter” is actually composed of tiny videos she mostly records of herself just chatting in her bedroom. She usually sends multiple per week, sometimes multiple per day.. in fact, while editing this newsletter, I got patti in my inbox with the message “an absolute travesty” which is a 7 minute video mostly about sitting on her glasses. I don’t know, I don’t always watch them, but sometimes I do and I find them charming.]]] Anyway, I decided I had to call out of work to go to this service in arguably the most beautiful church in New York, which consisted of readings by famous writers and Joan’s close friends, and ended with Patti singing Bob Dylan’s Chimes of Freedom. It was an homage I’ll never forget and would rather chat about than write about, if you also want to just chat.
Death has been hungry the last few years, and winter as ~the season of~ holds a tension that sometimes feels unbearable. There are the actual deaths— the realization I had a few weeks ago after my great-aunt Dina passed, that an entire generation of my family is gone - that my parents are the elders now and so much of the history and culture and language I identify with so strongly has faded. So it goes. And there are the small “deaths” — the amount of days it rained in January or the trip to the dentist or the remembering that Valentine’s Day exists and when you throw a menstrual cycle on top of these not-end-of-the-world facts of life it feels like there will never be sunshine or love again. Not to be dramatic! We (royal) tell each other that hard times must pass and don’t teach one another to deal with loss or grief and I am just feeling really grateful for writers and singers and artists and friends who find ways of articulating Feeling, especially now - in the dead of winter - when even the Forest, my normal house of worship and resolve, feels like it has less to give.
Every time I write to share I also feel like dying a little, but it’s definitely definitely also living a little, so thanks for the space :)
xo
Lauren