Kicking the door off the hinges

"I had sworn my love to Graham (Nash) in a way that I didn't think was possible for myself. And he wanted me to marry him. I had agreed to it. And then I just started thinking. My grandmother was a frustrated poet and musician, she kicked the kitchen door off the hinges, on the farm. I thought about my paternal grandmother who wept for the last time in her life at 14, behind some barn because she wanted a piano, and said, 'Dry your eyes, you silly girl, you'll never have a piano.'

"And I thought, maybe I'm the one that got the gene that has to make it happen for these two women. As much as I loved and cared for Graham, I thought, I'm going to end up like my grandmother, kicking the door off the hinges. And it's like, I better not. And it broke my heart."

(Joni Mitchell, speaking in the documentary, Joni Mitchell: Woman of Heart and Mind, part of the American Masters series on PBS; 2003.)

--Transcribed by Beth Blevins.