in weeks," May Sarton begins this book, "to take up my 'real' life again at last. That is what is strange--that friends, even passionate love, are not my real life, unless there is time alone in which to explore what is happening or what has happened." In this journal, she says, "I hope to break through into the rough, rocky depths, to the matrix itself. There is violence there and anger never resolved. My need to be alone is balanced against my fear of what will happen when suddenly I enter the huge empty silence if I cannot find support there."

In this book, we are closer to the marrow than ever before in May Sarton's writing.