Patti Smith on prepping for concerts: "I would roam the streets for a few hours"

"the way such walking might toughen and sharpen the sensibility, wrap one in an isolation.."

In the city one is alone because the world is made up from strangers, and to be a stranger surrounded by strangers, to walk along silently bearing one's secrets and imagining those of the people one passes, is among the starkest luxuries.