Easter

Every Easter, I begin the day the same way I have for at least 30 years: I listen to Patti Smith. No, not Easter (at least not at first; I put that on later). I start with side one, track one of her first LP Horses - “Gloria: In Excelsis Deo”.

“Jesus died for somebody’s sins, but not mine”. That opening line gets me every time. It was the opening shot across the bow that announced that punk rock was here and things were gonna be different! It was the liberation of my soul from the used and abusive mainstream ideology I had been force fed my entire life. I didn’t have to swallow Christianity whole. I was free to create what I would be. “My sins my own; they belong to me.” Ownership of the self and all the messy mistakes, blind alleys and brokenness that goes along with life.

Listening to that record for the first time, at a friend’s home in 1976, away from my parents and their disapproval, away from Fort Worth (“Cowtown”) and the Church, I heard those words as validation that I was not alone. There were others like me, not born to take the easy path to death but born to live. I could think and feel differently from the accepted norms and it would be ok. I could move forward on my own feet and create the myths for myself that would work for me. I didn’t have to know where I was going. I could “follow my own bliss”.

I never looked back…