Musician and author Patti Smith describes, in her book "Just Kids", the genesis of the creative impulse when she was just a child:<\/p>\n
When I was very young, my mother took me for walks in Humboldt Park, along the edge of the Prairie River. I have vague memories, like impressions on glass plates, of an old boathouse, a circular band shell, an arched stone bridge. The narrows of the river emptied into a wide lagoon and I saw upon its surface a singular miracle. A long curving neck rose from a dress of white plumage.<\/em><\/p>\n Swan, my mother said, sensing my excitement. It pattered the bright water, flapping its great wings, and lifted into the sky.<\/em><\/p>\n The word alone hardly attested to its magnificence nor conveyed the emotion it produced. The sight of it generated an urge I had no words for, a desire to speak of the swan, to say something of its whiteness, the explosive nature of its movement, and the slow beating of its wings.<\/em> <\/p>\n