You know, it's like I try to fit the impossible into twenty-four hours.

I've been reading about Stevie, trying to pin down exactly what went on in her personal life....  As far as I can tell, she had an electrical love with Lindsey Buckingham, a soulmate love with Joe Walsh, a great love affair with Mick Fleetwood, and a best-friendship with Tom Petty.  All these creators...

So if not for me, then do it for yourself.  If not for me, then do it for the world.  Poet, priest of nothing. - from "Has Anyone Ever Written Anything For You"

About that line, she said:  

It means all of the rock and roll stars in the world that I know. They're all poets and they're all priests of nothing and they're all legends.

It's like, they are poets. But they don't push themselves to their limits. 'Priests of nothing' means they don't try hard enough. They don't do with what they have what I feel they could do. And so whenever I get involved with any of them, I tend to become like their manager and their agent. You know, 'Why don't we get out your piano and plug it in and write a song or something? Or arrange this for me.'

It's like, I even know that if I could even just get them to the piano, if I could just lure them with a glass of wine and some carrots and stuff and just like get them to the piano, that they'll be home free and so will I because I'll get to stand there and watch them be brilliant, and probably write something, and they will be knocked out because they're doing what they do, and they forget they have a job, you know.

This is a woman who, when on the road, would get in to her hotel room at 4 a.m. after a show and then light some candles and incense, sit down at her typewriter and write for another three hours, journaling the trip.  At the end of a tour she would bind up the notes, make copies and give them out to the band members.

I don't know where I'm going with this.  But I identify with this woman.  I identify with her experience of these significant loves.  I identify with her pleasure in standing there watching them be brilliant.  I identify with her need for atmosphere and the perfect solitude of writing while the world sleeps.  I identify with her going off while the instrument-players recorded at the studio, finding her own space, sitting down at her keyboard and writing Dreams.

She calls herself a priestess of way too much -- her problem the opposite of not trying hard enough:  not knowing when to stop.  And I think it's the not-stopping that makes me scared of the ways I identify with her.  Because as much as I want to endlessly chase all my urges to create and inspire, I equally want a home with a height chart on the wall and heavy furniture.  How do I fit all that into my twenty-four?

oh p.s. GET YOUR TICKETS NOW!