Whatever you're facing...
Heaven Can Begin Now

And while we blithely planned our future in Europe, closer at hand the dragons lay in wait. The first one to creep from its cavern in the unconscious was the old wish to barricade myself from the world.

In Florida one night I had an excited phone call from John to say he'd found a furnished apartment on Manhattan's upper West Side, only a short bus ride from Columbia University where I'd enrolled for the summer semester to complete my college degree.

The apartment, he went on enthusiastically, was the entire top floor of a private home. Access was through the family's living quarters on the lower floors, but the landlady, Mrs. Connors, had assured him they would not be disturbed by our comings and goings. "She's awfully nice -- says she'll put milk and eggs in the refrigerator the day I move in."

Though the decor, he added, was not what we would have chosen, running to fringed lampshades and pastel prints of Jesus, the rooms were large and sunny. We had a living room, a dining room, a kitchen, two bedrooms. When Mrs. Connors learned I'd be going to school, she'd had her husband and son carry a desk upstairs.

I returned to New York in early June. "If you give me your grocery list," our obliging landlady offered, "I can pick up things for you while I'm out."

The list I gave her grew shorter each week, as she kept our larder supplied from downstairs. Several times a day there'd be a cheery