A Letter from Oliver Sacks to Edward Podvoll Regarding “Recovering Sanity”

Dear Ed,

I have just read, re-read, the new edition of your book with enormous pleasure, more pleasure, perhaps, than I had the first time, because I have gone deeper into the subject, and you have too. It makes me doubly sorry that we missed each other in September …

I was so ‘turned on’ by your book that I contacted the Mass. ‘branch’ of WINDHORSE, and have arranged to go up there for a short visit on December 3. But you are the fons et origo of it all—and I want to see you, see the original WINDHORSE in Boulder—that is, if you are well enough, and up to a visit. I am sorrier than I can say about your illness …

I was in San Francisco a couple of days ago, visited old friends, and thought back to our days at Mount Zion; and how little any of us could have predicted the course of our lives would take … Certainly yours took an amazing and creative turn in the early Seventies … and led you on a (wonderful!) path, which you could scarcely have anticipated.

With warm good wishes,

—and admiration!—

Oliver