July 27, 2004

• Chapter 6 (cont.) I began to think of ways to extricate myself from marriage, including spending time with other interesting men I met – a sculptor, a medical student, a poet. I decided I would go to Israel and live on a kibbutz. I wrote letters to one and was accepted to come, and I began to study Hebrew and attend Israeli folk dancing classes. My husband had decided to apply for a fellowship to study in Moscow during the 1962-63 school year, and I planned to spend this time in Israel rather than go with him if he received it. In the summer of 1961 as I turned 22, one of the last-ditch efforts to save the marriage was a hike with two of our student friends along the John Muir Trail taking seven days to cross five 12,000-foot passes. High on this brutal gifted mountain, the noise of its water like a hymn, the stars shining, pure like nuns, in their cathedral, I stand exhausted on the cold, gray rocks – at last a pilgrim. (to be continued)

  Deep Thought: The other day I got out my can opener and was opening a can of worms when I thought, “What am I doing?!”
  Today I am grateful for: Having a car with air conditioning even though it takes about 15 minutes to cold up.
  End of Day – 8:50 pm
  + = Survived second day of jury duty, even started getting a kind of zen hang of it all, and was not called for a trial.
  - = As I was sitting next to a woman who made random jabbing motions with her hands and talked to herself on the bus this morning (it seems 80% of bus riders are poverty-stricken and physically and/or mentally ill), I thought sadly of the dog sleeping on the sidewalk next to the young woman who asked me for money and looked like she should be in rehab as I passed during my lunch break from jury duty the day before.

  • 8:18 am
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