I'm off at the next stop - A quick Bit on Patty Smith's M Train

In 2015 Patty Smith released the novel 'M Train', a seasoned look back on the writing world. Smith integrates her up to date life experiences, those ghosts from the pasts and visits to the graves of famous writers around the world. This book is a beautiful insight into the beautiful brain of Smith and the creative process in general. I definitely suggest it for any creative folks out there.

After giving this book to my Dad for his birthday last year, a thing I did because he shares his birthday with Smith, he gave it back to me and suggested I read it too. He figured I'd like it, and he was right!

I finished this book in the Jiffy Lube in Brantford, the sounds of drills filtering in from the room over, waiting on the snow tires to get put on. How monumental for me to finally finish this book, so many months later than I started it, In a moment of such acceptance in life's happenstance. The winds of change surrounding me and my demure calm. We watch Smith in the novel in her day to day, always revolving around her trips to Cafe Ino, her favourite coffee shop in New York City, always with the same cup, same chair, same corner and same slice of toast and olive oil. At the end of the book we find ourselves outside of Cafe Ino with the doors closing forever. Smith finds it in her to accept the end of this pivotal chapter in her life and finds it in her to acknowledge some of the other turmoil, the stuff of much larger scale, that had been keeping her in a stagnant position all those years.

I couldn't have finished this book at ay other point, I wasn't ready to finish anything, I didn't want a single moment to be put on a shelf. I wouldn't have understood it then, those days that I put it off and off and off. Today, however, was a much different day, side smile on my face and peace in my heart.

I yawned, closed the book and put in my bag, where It had lived for months, I carried it with me everywhere. The next time it comes out, it's going on the self until I either decide to share it with another or undertake it again myself. The average joe sitting across from me in the Jiffy Lube , sippin' his XL Tim's Double Double remarked 'You're not allowed to do that'. I stopped in my tracks, headlights in my eyes and confused smile on my face. I realized he meant yawn, as he lifted his arms and stretched back, yawning himself. I had forgotten how contagious they were. Alas, the simplest phrases in small towns and how they can be perfectly placed.