From the Desk of the Director – May 27, 2022
Finally, the sun.
We’ve been waiting so long, but—what a glorious coincidence! The end of the year and the sudden illumination, the source of warmth, are marking so many transitions.
My advice, for what it’s worth: bask. Take some time to bask. You have come through a long, dark winter in so many ways, and while there are still plenty of challenges ahead, take a moment to reward yourself for your stamina and steady growth.
Take a breath and bask. And, as you’re basking, consider these words by the French poet Charles Baudelaire, which were spoken in the midst of much merriment at our senior send-off event:
You have to be always drunk. That’s all there is to it—it’s the only way. So as not to feel the horrible burden of time that breaks your back and bends you to the earth, you have to be continually drunk.
But on what? Wine, poetry or virtue, as you wish. But be drunk.
And if sometimes, on the steps of a palace or the green grass of a ditch, in the mournful solitude of your room, you wake again, drunkenness already diminishing or gone, ask the wind, the wave, the star, the bird, the clock, everything that is flying, everything that is groaning, everything that is rolling, everything that is singing, everything that is speaking. . .ask what time it is and wind, wave, star, bird, clock will answer you: “It is time to be drunk! So as not to be the martyred slaves of time, be drunk, be continually drunk! On wine, on poetry or on virtue as you wish.
Make this summer last forever. And, when forever ends, remember that we’ll be here to welcome you back.
Yours in sunlight and illumination,
JEM
