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.