lost on labyrinthine paths

Evening Dress

c. 1930

unknown maker, Australia

Patti Smith and Robert Mapplethorpe

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Milk cost, say, eight cents. Chocolate milk cost ten cents. Robert [Mapplethorpe, the artist and Smith’s longtime companion] loved chocolate milk. We didn’t have the extra two cents to buy him the chocolate milk, or if we did it would mean I couldn’t get my coffee. So it was always a trade-off. We got to a point where it was either a sharpener and three pencils or a grilled-cheese sandwich we could split. Finally, I would just lift the pencils so we could eat.

I wrote "Just Kids" for Robert. I said to him, “Is there anything I can do?” We both knew he was dying. He gave me some tasks he wanted me to do, and then he said, “Will you write our story?” And I shuddered, you know, and said, “Do you really want me to?” And he said, “Yes.” And I said, “Well, then I will write it.” He knew I would. And he died the next day. It was quite a task, and sometimes, truthfully, I didn’t feel up to it and I would shelve it. It took me twenty years to find the courage, the voice, and the energy.

All the people that I’ve lost—and I’ve lost a lot—I keep them with me. And it makes life that much happier. About six or seven years ago, I saw the perfect shirt for Fred, my late husband. I started paying for it before I even realized what I was doing. And then I bought it anyway. I just keep them all with me because life doesn’t have to be so lonely. You know, if you shut everybody out just because they die, then what’s it all for?

--Patti Smith to Cal Fussman in Esquire in 2015