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| Joan Baez, folksinger |
It Was Marvelous |
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He rowed over to where I was sitting wistfully plunking my new Goya and singing on the banks of the Charles.
Michael studied Greek. Perfect. He was from the West Indies. Dazzling. He spoke French, did not have a girlfriend and, yes, had noticed me, in my bohemian knitted and tasseled garb and bare feet, gaping at him [in the college restaurant hangout] from the sidewalk. What a fortuitous beginning. Our meeting was arranged. We fell in love and became inseparable.
I told my mother I needed some birth control. "Do you love him?" she asked, and then sent me off to a doctor, who reluctantly fit me for a diaphragm. Birth control was illegal in Massachusetts in 1958.
Margie loaned us her apartment and, at long last, after years of telling myself I would go to hell if I did "it" (and Michael agonizing because he was sure I had already done "it" plenty of times and was lying to him), I finally knew that my body was making more sense than my Spanish demons. "It" was marvelous, and for quite some time after, Michael and I spent most of our energy figuring out where we could go to do "it" next. (Boston, 1958)
from And a Voice to Sing With: A Memoir by Joan Baez (Summit Books, © 1987)
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