Dear Madonna Ciccone, +++ They’re Jackson Browne’s words not mine, but they seem to fit. +++ „I don’t mean to be cruel babe, but you’re looking confused… it’s so hard to come by, that feeling of peace“. +++ That’s exactly how I felt some mornings when I looked in the bathroom mirror, but recently I found a good way to overcome this feeling is through working in the vineyards. +++ I know you can’t do that in New York City, but the flight from there to Traverse City in North Michigan (via Detroit) is short, and your family own Ciccone Vineyards close to there. +++ I visited back in December 2007, had a long talk with your father Tony and tasted all his wines. +++ Some are better than others, but he really believes in what he’s doing, works hard at it, and people like him for that. +++ That’s not the reason that I’m recommending working in the vineyards though, just a side-effect. +++ Until you experience it you can’t understand what a positive feeling you get from tending vines and working the soil in which they grow. +++ I speak from experience, having begun to cultivate a small vineyard in Germany’s Tauber Valley this January. +++ I’m a total beginner, but I didn’t find it hard to master any of the tasks so far. +++ At first sight they seemed banal and repetitive, but that’s not at all the way they felt when I did them, rather they generated a wonderful sense of peace, making me feel at one with the universe. +++ I know there would be a special problem in your case, because people would come to watch you and bug you when you start doing this. +++ My guess is that after they get used to the fact that you’re now tending vines, instead of making another disco album they’ll leave you alone. +++ And if you want to get really close to nature, you could convert the vineyards to biodynamic cultivation, which means working in step with cosmic cycles. +++ If that sounds good, then I suggest you contact Georg Meissner at the wine university in Geisenheim/Germany where I’m studying +++ nobody I met knows more about this than he does. +++ Think it over. +++ Yours truly Stuart Pigott