From JUST KIDS by PATTI SMITH
“We scavenged the streets every trash day and picked up some of our most beautiful and cherished furniture.”
“I struggled to suppress destructive impulses and worked instead on creative ones.”
“Of all of your work, you are still your most beautiful. The most beautiful work of all.”
*** I loved reading about how Patti and Robert made a beautiful life for themselves with very little money—scavenging the streets every trash day and picked up some of their most cherished furniture. How beautiful it must be have a life, a love, a friendship that is also a work of art.
When I lived in Europe, some of our most beloved furniture, including my writing desk, also came from the trash. Creating something beautiful and worth a lot with very little means will always be a challenge I’d welcome.
“Telling myself that at least I am free.”
After I graduated college, I remember that above all what I wanted was to be free. How could I be free if I had to say bullshit about company products that are promoted as green but was just as destructive as anything? I knew I couldn’t be free if I’m tied down to a man who wanted me to only be one thing. Later I learned that I could freely choose to be in a monogamous relationship and it didn’t have to be a loss of freedom (read The Double Flame by Octavio Paz). Much later, I learned about freely choosing a religious interpretation that works with your conscience and that is liberating.
I remember having no money and being constantly hungry—for food, for sex, and to create. All the while struggling with shame, depression, and morbid timidity, trying my damnest to suppress my self-destructive tendencies and to be well enough to write.
I remember going on dates with men I didn’t really like, just so I could get dinner. I considered sex work, but I was living in Jakarta at the time and I thought I needed to show my surroundings that a woman could be sexually free and didn’t do it for gifts or money. This perspective was flawed, because sex work is a job like any other, and perhaps I could’ve shown the world instead that a sex worker could be a noted novelist (many examples already if you Google), or better yet I could’ve got rid off this feeling that I had to show world something. My mother gave me a lot of fucked-up advice regarding relationship, mostly about how women should be obedient and be patient with men, but one thing she got right: never accept gifts or anything from a man that makes you in his debt.
Never have I felt lower in my life than when I had to accept money from men, even from my partner at first. Now I’ve learned that many artists can only create because they have a partner or a parent or someone who makes it possible for them to live and work on their art. And they do it not so that you are indebted to them but because they believe fiercely in you and your art, and your relationship is still one of equals. If I don’t have to go on dates for food anymore, it’s because of my partner. Sometimes I’ll have my own income from published pieces, translation works, or art projects, and that helps my pride. But I’m grateful that I can focus on my work and, through InterSastra, the arts organization I’m building, open possibilities for others to be creative as well.