My favorite paragraph from Patti Smith’s Bread of Angels:
“That spring, the lilacs bloomed, the long-haired branches of our ancient willow swayed. The interior of the boat suited us. It had a jazz feeling, with its speckled Formica table. We’d sit there and inventory the things we still needed to buy: a ship’s compass, life jackets, and material for curtains that I would sew by hand. In the evenings we’d sit in the boat with a thermos of coffee for me and a Budweiser for Fred, listening to Tiger baseball on the transistor radio. Fred would spread out his nautical maps, studying Lake St. Clair, and the best route in going across the Detroit River to Ontario. He studied course plotting, compass reading, steering, navigational routes. I would read about Egypt, Thebes, and the Sahara, and we’d often laugh, as it was not lost on either of us that our Formica table was divided between the sea and the desert.”
In the paragraph that follows we learn that the boat never made it into the water, which is both heartbreaking, and, well, normal.
For me the heart of this book is her description of her quiet years outside Detroit with Fred and their two children, off stage and far out of the public eye. How many nights did we listen to the Tigers on a transistor radio and plot out our dreams, some which would be realized, and some not? How many of us ever realize that the moment around the Formica table on the dry-docked boat with the person you love most in the world is the dream?
We were at the simulcast of the Met’s production of Bellini’s I Puritani. As all these Met productions are, this one was excellent. In the final act, Arturo, facing execution, “beseeches the people” to understand that his lover Elvira has betrayed him, not because she doesn’t love him, but because she is deranged (which she is). Arturo’s aria at this moment was inarguably beautiful. The man sitting behind us gasped, literally cried out and wept a little and I could imagine–I didn’t turn around–him dramatically clutching his heart. I found it annoying at first, but seconds later I was bit envious, admiring. To be moved like that.
Every once in a while one of Macklin’s friends reaches out. He’s been gone ten years, so we don’t hear much, but it’s always welcome. His buddy Sam called this week. He found one of Macklin’s coats in his parents’ closet. “Are you sure it’s Macklin’s?” I asked. “Yeah,” he said, “It’s a huge canvas coat and it had a bag of weed in one pocket and a bag of ‘shrooms in the other.” So, yeah, Macklin’s coat for sure.
What are you doing? my wife asks.
Writing, I say. It’s not a bad question. Writing, when it’s being done by me, takes many shapes, staring into space, for example.
Writing what? she asks.
I don’t know, maybe a blogpost.
Great, she says, death, death and more death.
This, by the way is not that post.
I don’t keep a journal. I don’t even like the word, hate it in fact when it’s turned into a verb. Journaling. No thanks. But I do take a lot of notes. Many times I jot things down and don’t include the context, thinking at the time that there’s no way I’d ever forget the context, or the meaning, the reason I wrote it down in the first place. I think this one is from a dream, but it could have been overheard or told to me by someone else who dreamed it:
“Strange boat ride we are on here, huh?”
“Wow, you guys are on this boat, too?”
So, not sure of the context, but pretty sure we’re all on this boat.
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