Photo, Patti Smith’s Writing On The Wall, from my Instagram post last night. She told a couple of us that she decided to write on the gallery wall because she likes to deface public property. Then she smiled.

Patti Smith not politics. Last night there were no political statements, no loud campaign buttons, no complaints about potential nominees. (But there was some awesome fashion, which I needed. Thank goodness we’ve still got an edge.)
As usual, for those of us who have attended many events centered around Patti’s work over the years, there was an unspoken poetic understanding and a punk-love sensibility making conversation easy throughout the gallery. Here are a couple of my notes.

Jule walks in the door, and I see Lenny Kaye welcome him like an old friend. Typical Jule. Patti tells me with a smile and a shrug (after I whisper to her about all the work over all the years), “Aww. It’s just my job.” 

Think about that. The simplicity of it. Her work ethic is a beast, but the simplicity of purpose, a woman knowing, entertaining no doubt over decades of labor, that she’s just doing her job—that is something to witness. Every time she speaks, she says something seemingly off the cuff, which makes me think about process and discipline. That, I believe, is because she’s a poet.
Sometimes, to find the world a beautiful place, you’ve got to show up and just appreciate other people’s work, struggle, transcendence. And know that the creative spirit transcends all this division right now. To find joy in a day, you’ve got to believe that it does.