In spite of having developed an intense phobia of confined places after this experience and being prescribed a heavy-duty anti-anxiety drug, I went back out immediately and found another secretarial job with the Agricultural Publications Department at UC Berkeley, but this time the atmosphere was so much more mellow that over the next year-and-a-half I began slowly to unwind. At this time we moved to a little house high in the Oakland hills perched at the top of a long flight of stairs among towering eucalyptus trees. Except for a Christmas visit to the farm in Oregon, this would be our home until we left California in the spring of 1962. My husband spent most of his time in his study working hard toward his Master's degree. It was now that I began to listen to classical music and read poetry on my own. I began to mention drinking California wines in the letters home (which were still frequent). One day I was in a record store and heard Joan Baez, the first memory I have of discovering folk music. I loved it. In the spring of my 21st year sent my first poem home.

That summer our marriage was struggling. I felt at loose ends, out of sync, fluttering around inside myself, the feelings starting to falter themselves out in poetry. I couldn't have been more emotionally vulnerable, and one day through a family friend I met a young man who was also a poet and knew much more about writing it than I. He paid attention to me for qualities that my husband did not seem to see, and from this point on it was just a matter of time before I would strike out on my own. Years later, in my 50's I returned to college to major in French directly due to my introduction to French prose poetry at this time. It has remained the style of my own writing.