A Quote by Jean Kennedy Smith
Our life did not seem unusual to me at all. Anything that happened that was special, like visits from dignitaries, was always explained as part of Dad's work.
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I was pretty young when my father was prime minister, so it wasn't really a big part of my life. My folks were away a lot, meeting foreign dignitaries and that sort of thing, but it never struck me as odd. If anything it allowed me to get into all sorts of mischief.
One day, I went to buy something for my dad at the shops, and I heard a song by Nat King Cole called 'Stardust Melody.' It was like I went into a trance or something. I forgot all about my dad sending me to the shop. When I got home, I explained to him what happened. I thought I was going to get a whipping, but he understood.
Growing up, all I did was work and vacation, but I loved it, no one pushed me into anything. The thing was I developed no special skills. I don't have any resentment because I am a performer and I've always felt that, but it did take its toll socially.
I had a really unusual, remarkably unusual father because he, in our family, was the one that suffered the most. He was the one that explained American democracy to me. He said, ‘Our democracy is a people’s democracy and it can be as great as people can be, and it can be great… but we are also fallible human beings.’
My youngest son's pre-school class was recently asked what their dads do for work. The responses were things like, my dad sells money, and my dad figures stuff out. My son said, 'I've never seen my dad do work.' It's true. Skateboarding doesn't seem like real work, but I'm proud of what I do.
Out in the world not much happened. But here in the special night, a land bricked with paper and leather anything might happen, always did.
Afraid no, I wasn't afraid but it was an unusual thing, it was an unusual feeling. It was an unusual atmosphere for me having grown up in this country and, and, and never seeing anything like that.
My humanitarian work evolved from being with my family. My mom, my dad, they really set a great example for giving back. My mom was a nurse, my dad was a school teacher. But my mom did a lot of things for geriatrics and elderly people. She would do home visits for free.
My dad was an absentee dad, so it was always important to me that I was part of my daughter's life, and she deserved two parents, which is part of the rationale behind us staying married for 30 years.
I've always been and will always be very private about my personal life. If anything ever goes public, it is by default, because I happened to be in a place where I was being watched. But for the most part, I honestly don't care what people think. I never have. If I did, I'd probably present myself a little more carefully.
I think one of the core ideas in America has always been conversation and being able to question our systems of government, and being able to dictate our own communities and how we want this country to work. And I feel like we're losing part of that because of the way that even our current political campaign is centered more around celebrity than anything else, and so we're kind of losing conversation. We're still having conversations, but they seem to be more about like Donald Trump's hair and like memes of his face more than anything else.
I have always believed that if you want to achieve anything special in life you have to work, work, and then work some more.
When I first started out, they were like, 'Is there anybody that you like that you want to work with, and we'll see what we can do?' And I went, 'I like Malay,' who's Frank Ocean's producer, and they were like, 'Not going to happen.' It did seem so, like, high-in-the-sky sort of thing, do you know what I mean? It still does, that it happened.
I kept as still as I could. Nothing happened. I did not expect anything to happen. I was something that lay under the sun and felt it, like the pumpkins, and I did not want to be anything more. I was entirely happy. Perhaps we feel like that when we die and become a part of something entire, whether it is sun and air, or goodness and knowledge. At any rate, that is happiness; to be dissolved into something complete and great. When it comes to one, it comes as naturally as sleep.
Music was always a big part of our family life. My dad's brother used to play the harmonica at family parties, and my mum was in the Luton Girls Choir, who did lots of radio broadcasts and performances in the 50s. I have older cousins who used to play me their soul and ska records.
Part of me wanted to disappear into a cave in India, and I did end up going on retreats there, but, don't ask me why, I always felt very strongly that the point for me was to find a way to live a truly spiritual life in the modern day world and be able to work with all the positive aspects of our cultural and technological advancements.
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