Sandi, Your passionate presence on Ifriends these past several weeks has impacted all of us. It’s as if a dormant volcano has been reborn, and the air we now breathe and live in is laden with the ash of your eruptions, coating our senses, searing our memories. Of course, I hope you will be with us for a long time; so please do anything you need to do to re-charge, recreate and prolong your interest in us mere mortals. A couple fan club sessions a month is pretty standard (and yours are and will be extraordinary) so don’t worry about it. In fact, put your feet up now, have a croissant and a cappuccino, and drink in the poet’s sage advice:

“Moderation Is Not a Negation of Intensity, But Helps Avoid Monotony,” by John Tagliabue

Will you stop for a while, stop trying to pull yourself together for some clear “meaning” – some momentary summary? No one can have poetry or dances, prayers or climaxes all day; the ordinary blankness of little dramatic consciousness is good for the health sometimes. Only Dostoevsky can be Dostoevskian at such long, long tumultuous stretches; look what the intensity did to poor Van Gogh! Linger, lounge, scrounge and be stupid, that doesn’t take much centering of one’s forces. As wise Whitman said “lounge and invite the soul.” Get enough sleep; and not only because (as Cocteau said) “poetry is the literature of sleep.” Be a dumb bell for a few minutes at least; we don’t want Sunday church bells ringing constantly. -RICO

I feel so loved Thanks for your wisdom xox