Spending Time With Patti

During the three week layoff, there was really nothing for any of us to do. We couldn't rehearse, I had decided not to even try to get bookings until after the New Year, and I was feeling pretty insecure about a lot of things. I had been seeing Patti fairly regularly for two years now, but our relationship, which was still pretty passionate, was still open and non-exclusive. In the last few months of 1979, I had been seeing her more, and at this point, I needed the comfort that my relationship with her seemed to provide. She was like a pain killer for me, and the pain, that old pain that had never been addressed, and hadn't been an issue at all for the past three years, was starting to reappear. Except it had turned into a deeper pain. For three years, I had been so totally consumed with Avalanche that it had seemed to me that it had healed. But it hadn't. It had just been lying there, deep inside of me, dormant..but ever-present, and the series of events I had experienced in the past few months..the banned record, the problems with Charles, the lack of work, and the betrayal by my brother..had reawakened it. The clarity and total committment to my blueprint had kept me very distracted. Now, as things that never should have happened..seemed to be happening with great regularity..it was definetely back, and I found relief from that pain in my relationship with Patti. At the time, I thought it was love. I thought she was still pretty together, and she was there for me. As the year ended, we were really spending a lot of time together, and conversely, Annie was also spending less time with me...as job committments in New York, and fewer Avalanche gigs seemed to make our relationship less serious...as if both our business relationship, and our personal one had both been put on a "back burner." A lot of my communications with her were over the phone, although I still saw her once, and sometimes twice a month. But when I did see Annie, I could see it was starting to hurt Patti. And for Patti...that was becoming a real issue...so we decided on a trip to Jamaica in January. We needed a clean out..and I needed a rest..