take another piece of my heart

Had she lived, Janis Joplin would be 63 today.

The first time I ever heard of Janis, I was 13 and had wandered into a yard sale down the street from the house I lived in. It was the summer. I was thumbing through (and I remember this as though it was yesterday)a box of albums. Half way through, I came across Pearl, by Janis Joplin. This image of her grinning, with all these feather boas, on an ornate loveseat slammed into me like a lightning bolt. I was instantly and forever on constantly captivated with her image. I bought that album and I became obsessed with the 60's counterculture, the hippies, Haight-Ashbury and San Francisco.

I grew out of the latter interests, but never lost my facination for Janis. It has spurned trips to Port Arthur, Texas; her hometown, Austin where she started singing and of course San Francisco. My last trip to SF, I managed to talk my way into the house she owned in Larkspur at the time of her death. I will never forget climbing the loft ladders, running my hands over the original stone counter tops and standing in starstruck awe of her pool table. Breathing in the air as though I could breathe in something of her.

It's silly, I know. It's also unexplainable, even to myself. I just embrace it and let it run through me.

She was great. She was powerful and full of conviction to be true to herself. She was beautiful and raw and an intellectual. She was authentic and bold. Fearless in the beginning.