Just Kids

I finished Patti Smith's memoir, Just Kids, over the Christmas break. I find it helpful to read about courageous people in case bravery is contagious.

Pattie moved to New York when job prospects were bleak in her hometown and finishing her degree at a teacher's college was financially and emotionally discouraging. On her first night, she meets the man that will become her companion for a large part of her life in New York, Robert Mapplethorpe. As she tries to carve out her way through art, poetry and music, Robert's artistic path is intertwined.

Robert and Patti have the kind of intuitive relationship that I admire. Even when they realize limitations in their relationship, the love that they have for each other is never questioned. They support and protect each other, acquiesce when kindness is needed and provoke when needed more.

I never liked the idea that when two people fit so well together they have somehow become whole or complete, suggesting perhaps that alone they stand as only a part of a person. Robert and Patti are illustrated as two complete people that can stand alone in their accomplishments, cheering the other on with the knowledge that the success was always secretly assured. How do you fit that kind of a relationship in a neat little bow of metaphor or simile? How do you describe, especially when both moved on to other lovers, what that kind of love still is? Patti succeeds in her book. So happy to have read it.