See full version of Deb’s notes with photos here:

Pondering over Patti’s BREAD, as you know, I got [distracted] involved but here’s an attempt to return to our broad discussion & follow that track.

After a bit of bz, we dove into Patti Smith’s BREAD OF ANGELS, the memoir of a child “prone to falsehoods” & inclined to question, we were [most of us?] impressed by her sincerity and candor—and incredible memory.  We focused first on her manner of probing;1) a desire to communicate what’s involved dropping into the quiet solitary depths of shared [sacred?] consciousness to create art in any medium—voice, word, paint, sculpture, dance.  And 2) the impressive way she unites personas at the end—pertinent to this examination of her life, and nearing 70-years-old doing a DNA test w/sis Linda that offers a fresh spin. We observed how self actualized Patti is, an ambition pursued w/significant success via the “Rebel Hump” that we come gradually to understand: a monkey on her back, suggests Kim, this memoir revealing who am I? as Caterpillar encouraged her to ponder in ALICE, a fave from way back. Patti defines & exercises the artistic process, acknowledging too, the science of genes & generational influence. How to do this? Patti guides [p.227]:  

“How can we leap back up? Get back on our feet, grab a cart, and start gathering the debris, both physical and emotional. Crush it into small stones, then pulverize them & as the dust settles, dance upon it.  How do we do that? By returning to our child self, weathering our obstacles in good faith.  For children operate in the perpetual present, they go on, rebuild their castles, lay down their casts and crutches, & walk again.’ 

We get a clear sense of gender fluidity too from the start: 3) never grow up and not have to choose to be Peter or Wendy—be the leader in the Buddy Gang + sit bedside with Mother enduring migraines, care for younger sibs. Patti’s clear too when told she’s too old to go shirtless, observing to us readers “I didn’t want to be a boy any more than a young lady. I just wanted to be myself.” p..71   Well put!  And with dressing generally, too: white lacy dress as “wispy armor” imagined young (p.37), paired with a trash-can shield!

And 4) her effectiveness writing of the working class, soldiers home after the war: WWII servicemen’s families in limbo, kids “in our own cruel yet the magical reality” of rats, bullies, tick-infested dogs & illness, her mother hiding her pregnancy to not be evicted, —letting sub-stories unfold, condemned grounds, her mother taking in ironing, somehow managing to get Patti the ball-bearing skates she coveted, and gave her the foundational Silver Pennies poetry book –mother-daughter connect/conflict clear: 

“She always seemed to know what I was thinking, what I was up to, good or bad.  She scrutinized my movements, could easily spot a falsehood, grilling me constantly, causing me to hide truths that needed no hiding.  It was our greatest source of conflict.  She desperately tried to keep track, even shape me, but I stubbornly stayed outside the mold. Yet she was also able to determine what was vital to me.” p.24 –

While her father offered a different sort of discerning motivation outside the organized religion her mother needed. We acknowledged 5) how generous both parents were even if they had no money—kind and gentle, wanting to promote their kids’ individual talents. 

We returned [2] to Patti being “self-actualized,” how learning the truth of her paternity (& about her sibs) assisted her in making fresh sense of the pieces  of her life—reconciling impulses—reflecting on her childhood & what her father knew, + the way her mother protected Patti from having to cope with factors that would have complicated family life—beyond the Uncle-Joe, mean Great-Gram dynamics. Then DNA tests revised the plot line; generational inheritances, spirituality, the wrongs of war, & personas figuring in, too. 

We appreciated 6) that the memoir didn’t repeat the content of the Mapplethorpe saga told in JUST KIDS but kept moving!  Patti’s acceptance of aging let all experiences come to bear: feel innate power, keep enthusiasm, be curious, keep working, be agile rather than turning to cosmetic surgery & surfacy stuff   –though some of us did get inspired to go back & listen to her music since HORSES, reminded that “♪Jesus died for somebody’s sins but not miiiine♫ ”  has some worthy sequels —tho hard to equal that 1st album!

We recognized that her dad had a rebel streak, too—not understood by Mom—Patti being able to show him her “deviant” path to the turtle pond, + taking the significant outing with him to the Phili Art Museum where she discovered “art in person” {better than Vogue photo reality]. She also recognized her own lanky frame in Modigliani work & found Picasso while her dad admired Dali—a lesson in differences where she learned she could hold her own. She also made “an invisible transformation; I had fallen for art.” p.78  7) The family’s religious attitudes played in, too—a spiritual strand  permeating the book—Patti accepting that different positions held validity, giving her own full reign, beyond being a Jehovah Witness.

Mapplethorpe’s Art got attn, too—& Cincinnati conservatism: Catherine not allowed to carry a baby in past the giant-phallus photos. Noone under the age of 18 includes infants!   

Then what did we go on to say of angels on her shoulders? Her father, Fred, experience!??

SO . . .  PATTI SMITH (12/30/46) author, poet, musician, telling her own life story back to her scrappy neighborhood of childhood (Chicago, Phili, New Jersey in her 1^st 9 years), defending the home turf, illnesses thorough out childhood never diluting her imagination or self confidence.