Some of us are born rebellious. Reading the story of Zelda Fitzgerald by Nancy Milford, I identified with her mutinous spirit. I remember passing shop windows with my mother and asking why people didn't just kick them in. She explained that there were unspoken rules of social behavior, and that's the way we coexist as people. I felt instantly confined by the notion that we are born into a world where everything was mapped out by those before us. I struggled to suppress destructive impulses and worked instead on creative ones. Still, the small rule-hating self within me did not die.
When I told Robert of my child-self's desire to shatter windows, he teased me about it.
"Patti! No. You're the bad seed," he said. But I wasn't.
Sam on the other hand, identified with the little story. He had no problem imagining me in my little brown shoes itching to cause a ruckus. When I told him I sometimes had the impulse to put my foot through a window, he just said, "Kick it in, Patti Lee. I'll bail you out." With Sam I could be myself. He understood more than anyone how it felt to be trapped in one's skin.
Patti Smith writing about shattering windows with Robert Mapplethorpe and Sam Shepard in Just Kids. This book is wonderful. I'm savoring every dreamy sentence and beautiful idea.
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