Just Kids + Devotion - Patti Smith

Letter to Naida

Hi N.

Yes I totally agree with what you said... This is the exact huge realization I had when I read Just Kids. Especially regarding writing. I thought, I also pay so much attention to small things and everything to me is worth of a paragraph of beautiful words. I never thought someone else would find it interesting or of any value, until I read Just Kids and felt, that as much as I found her words beautiful, someone else could find MY words beautiful too. I never felt she could do something I couldn't. It was the other way round. And I know deep down that I have inspired people, even if I can count them with one hand, that's worth my existence.

I recognize this process she describes in Devotion, kind of finding signs on everything. Feeling that the Universe is guiding you into creating something special, and every time you find something like this, like a word on a tombstone, you can hear the Universe talking to you. Patti would call it God I guess.

I wanted to share a song with you as you share so many with me. I couldn't think of anything special until I thought of her. Sharon van Etten. With her sad voice. I used to listen to her late at night in the car with my friends Arturs, parked somewhere in Stoke Newington. I have a story in my head for a script, and for some reason, her music is the perfect soundtrack for it, I can't detach it now. Everytime I listen to her I think of my characters, young and broken Salli and Emma.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zKJTL9wgHbY

And below, a photo I took of her in a concert, it was stuck to the wall in my room in Turnpike Lane.

Devotion - Patti Smith

Letter to Naida:

I am really looking forward to going to the South of France this September. Still not sure if we are going because of how I'm feeling, but I'm pretty sure I'll feel fine by then. Since I moved to Europe I saw a lot of similarities between this intellectual side we have in Buenos Aires, to the French. Every little town in southern France has an Art studio of a world-famous painter, and their parks are adorned with statues celebrating artists, writers, and philosophers. I can tell that art and culture is a natural thing that French have in their life without even looking for it, and I like that. I just started reading Devotion and Patti Smith mentions going to a small town in the South of France, I thought what a nice coincidence. It's where she found the word "Devotion", in French, on a tombstone. Maybe I would like to go see the word devotion on that tombstone in real life. <3 I'm really enjoying Devotion, it's connecting me with that side of me that wants to write. I needed that and was thinking about it for a while. Maybe that's why now my emails are longer and I send them more often haha