Spring, 1960: Beloved Paris

In this entry of her Diary, Anais Nin records her trip to Sweden to read and lecture from two of her novels published there, then her return to the U.S. via Paris. She is in love with the small, intimate cafes and the personal, intimate conversations in which people in Paris engage.

She visits Sylvia Beach who owns the Shakespeare & Co. bookshop. She meets a friend at the Deux Magots cafe. She has lunch at the restaurant Paul on the Ile de la Cite. She walks alone the Seine and through the Left Bank. She sits at a cafe on the Place de la Contrescarpe. She walks between Place Clichy and Place Blanche and reads a review at the Moulin Rouge. She takes in an art exhibit on the walls under the bridge at Pont Neuf. She passes by the fountains at Rond Point. There is a concert playing in the Salle Gaveau where her father used to play.

Ahhhh, Paris in the spring.

Winter, 1959 - 1960: Oatmeal People

Anais Nin will sometimes contrast the artists with what she calls the oatmeal people. A letter from a friend says, "Your life was formed in the artist's world. In your childhood and throughout your life, you have been forced to reject the ordinary, the subordinary, the "oatmeal" people as you call them."

Artist: bohemian, full of curiosity, notices everything, needs to create, has imagination, needs beauty, likes to dream, lives intensely, full of energy, interesting, charming, adventurous, colorful, rich in experience, unconventional, hungry for life, free.

Oatmeal Person: boring, plain, empty, ordinary, conventional, one-dimensional, voiceless, spectator, invisible; basically, everything opposite of the artist.

Which are you - artist or oatmeal or a little of both?

Fall, 1959: Cutting off Relationships

After a session with her psychoanalyst, Anais Nin says,"I discuss with Bogner the unfortunate habit I have of cutting off friendships as soon as someone hurts me or betrays me. If they damage, disappoint me, I pack off and leave, and this is no solution. Even my novels are full of "cuts." "Cut!" says director Nin, as if it were a film being made, and one could cut out people's cruelties or thoughtlessness."

Dr. Bogner explains to Anais her need to relate to other people, but how everyone eventually commits "treachery," as Anais calls it. She has many friends who ask her for money or help of another kind, and these become burdens, demands for her. She feels hurt, used, and withdraws from the relationship.

Anais realizes that "by cutting off friendships, you create your own solitude." This can happen with family members as well. Those who are closest to us tend to hurt us the most. After we spend time with them or live with them, we expect them to love us perfectly; we hope that they will understand us completely, but they are only human and cannot do this.  We set ourselves up for disappointment because no one can deliver what we need, this unconditional love. We want it; we try and try and try to get it, then we are disappointed when we don't receive it. But as Anais says, it is no solution to pack up and leave. What is the solution?

Summer, 1959: Potion of Indifference

Anais Nin attends a party in the summer of 1959 that she anticipates will the the greatest party ever, but it turns out a dismal failure. All the people were sitting around, not talking to each other, not even showing any interest in each other. There was no laughter, no energy; it was dead. She says, "It was as if they had drunk a potion of indifference."

Have you attended parties like this? I have, and I have been the person who drank the potion of indifference. I suppose it came from a feeling of not belonging to the group, like maybe they all had some connection to each other that I didn't have. I just wanted to slip away or disappear or just get it over with as soon as possible. I think acting any other way would have been phony. Is it best just to avoid people you don't care to learn more about? Or should you make a greater attempt to actively participate and engage yourself in the conversation by expressing more curiosity about them? Is some of the responsibility on them as well?

Srping, 1959: Meaningless Experiences

Anais Nin makes a comment near the end of this diary entry: "Now will I construct a chaos of meaningless experiences as Kerouac does?" It made me wonder whether or not any experiences are meaningless. I have often said or thought, at least past the age of 30, that I'd rather have experiences than possessions. Life is a gift, meant to be lived and enjoyed, and to me, that means having fun and adventures. In other words, experiences.

So last year, I went to something like 30 movies in the theaters. Yes, some of these were not worthwhile, and I suppose they could be categorized as meaningless experiences. There are a few books I have read that have been meaningless for me. Sometimes I try a new recipe, hoping for a winner, and if it's not, does that make the experience of trying, experimenting meaningless? Is a meal more meaningful when shared with companions? When is going to the opera or a play or musical or ballet or symphony meaningless? When is traveling anywhere meaningless? Is visiting friends or family ever meaningless? Is it meaningless to get a massage or facial or manicure? What about visiting a museum or exploring an unfamiliar part of the city?

It's been said that it's better to regret what you do rather than what you don't do. To me, this means that it's better to have an experience and find it meaningless or not worthwhile than to never even try something in the first place. What do you think?

Winter, 1958 - 1959: Poverty of Life

Anais Nin writes in a letter:

"I understand loneliness better than anyone in the world, that is why I do answer letters and when you speak of your poverty of people I remember the times and places which were not lifegiving. Must you stay there? One should make a courageous effort to leave empty or lonely places. Life is much too precious. Looking back I can see how we create our own destiny, the negative aspects by our passivity. We should never accept poverty of life. I know it's difficult to face the unknown, to create another job, or another way of life. But if it is up to you, do not accept the void."

Anais is hospitalized with double pneumonia in March of 1959 but recovers in time to do a reading at Harvard.

She puts her continuous novels together into a collection called Cities of the Interior, which includes Ladders to Fire (which opens with This Hunger), Children of the Albatross, The Four-Chambered Heart, A Spy in the House of Love, and Solar Barque (which later become the opening section of Seduction of the Minotaur).

Summer, 1958: Soil of France

Anais Nin continues to reminisce about her recent trip to Paris in a letter to friends there: "I was beginning to think I was an eccentric and no one else thought as I did. But as soon as I stepped on the soil of France I realized I had a whole continent behind me." She thrives in the human, intimate, alive atmosphere of Paris whereas she has shriveled in the rigid, narrow, limited atmosphere of New York.

We all have times and places when we are with "our people" and are comfortable, alive, most ourselves and other times when we are not with "our people" and feel like an oddball, outcast, weirdo. Who are your people?

Spring, 1958: European Way of Living

Anais Nin has a "romantic fantasy of becoming a roving editor," makes arrangements with magazines to do articles on the Brussels World's Fair, then makes plans to get to Europe. She contrasts Europe with America; in Europe, there is a human scale with small cafes and restaurants, small theatres, small train stations, small streets. People have intimate conversations about their dreams and ideas instead of gossip, politics, business, crime, and exploring empty planets. In Europe, everyone knows the meaning of his life and lives for spiritual values; they are all artists at heart and care more about books and paintings and music than they do about the economy and the affairs movie stars are having. They talk deeply, personally, passionately. People take time to sit in cafes and talk and dream. Billboards are absent, and gas stations are hidden away.

Winter, 1957 - 1958: Jack Kerouac

Anais Nin read Jack Kerouac's On the Road in the summer of 1957 and loved the lyrical passages, alive with primitive beauty. She then meets him in the winter of 1957, but unfortunately, he was drunk and blubbering, and she found it impossible to talk with him because of her incurable prejudice against drunks. "A failed meeting because I am not a drinking partner," she says.

She has often felt alienated because she doesn't believe in drugs or alcohol, although she did try LSD under the supervision of a doctor, and she does drink limited quantities of alcohol. Anais does seem to understand the need some people have of drugs and alcohol because they need these substances to reach a place, a state, which she can reach on her own through dreaming and awakening her senses.

Fall, 1957: Art of Dressing

Anais Nin writes a "Letter from New York" for Eve magazine. In it, she discusses music, theater, books, parties, and the art of dressing:

"The distinction between colorless dressing and dressing to express character, a mood, the richness of a personality is the same one which separates a uniform from the art of dressing. The last originates from a knowledge of one's identity, an awareness of moods, a care for eloquence of body as well as of words. It is inseparable from the art of relationship or the art of living. A choice of scarf, a style of hair, the form of a shoe, a certain color, can play this lyrical note which reveals a woman's inner riches. The art of dress in living is not less valuable than the art of dress on the stage. The art of living is renewal, inventiveness, exploration, an openness to the unexpected, a love of surprises. Eve is not a spectator watching a fashion parade. She knows that even among textiles, she must choose with a feeling for the meaning of her life, the motifs and the patterns, the textures of her life and of those she loves, a harmonization of moods, temperaments and indications of the hidden selves which cannot appear badly dressed."

She is saying that the way you dress reveals the way you approach life and relationships, whether you invest yourself and spend energy be it on dressing, making love, or playing the role of wife, mother, daughter, employee.

Summer, 1957: Reflections on Living

Anais Nin reflects on life:

She believes the first defeat, the first loss is the one which stamps itself on your soul. From then on you obey the pattern. You inflate it. It becomes a part of your belief system until you become aware of it and overcome it.

She believes it is only the neurotic who drags his past around and decides his life is like a novel which, once written, cannot be changed. However, if you live a rich and beautiful life, you can forget the ugly moments.

She believes some remember only the wrongs society has done them, never the kindnesses they have received. But she also believes you can dispel or laugh away a grudge instead of sinking into it.

Spring, 1957: More on Anger

Anais Nin continues to explore her anger, which she realizes she is full of and has been holding back. She writes about revelations she has during / after her discussions with Dr. Bogner, her psychoanalyst.

"I fear my anger. The real problem is what to do with the anger. I have stifled it so long that I have packed it like dynamite. I have stored it and now it threatens to come out in explosions I fear. The day we discussed my anger I could only express bodily pain: a constricted throat, backache, headache, tension, tightness. I was using all my energy to suppress it. And I left Bogner with this rising tide of anger controlled. It is my conviction that anger is corrosive. So I displace it, attach it to peripheral places or people. After this I felt lighter. Just to have acknowledged the anger."

I identify with Anais in that I have felt that displays of anger are to be avoided, but then the anger is still there and it grows inside you like a cancer. You get to middle age and realize you are full of it and don't know how to express it or get it out. You have headaches and wonder if this is part of the mind-body connection. Some of the things you are angry about date back 10 plus years.

I guess it boils down to free will. We largely create our own experiences and can decide how we respond to anything: with love or with hate. Responding with hate leads to anger, bitterness, cynicism. OK, so we responded to something with hate 10 years ago, and the feelings have grown into a huge, ugly monster inside of us - how do we get rid of that now?

Winter, 1956 - 1957: Holiday Neurosis

With the holidays approaching, we may as well talk about Anais Nin's description of "the holiday neurosis. The one time of year when your memory is forced by associations to return to the past. The superimposition of other Christmases, other New Years, the awful sense of time passing, all this causes sadness, regrets, or revulsion. A forced gaiety is expected of me which I do not feel."

Not only this, but there are also expectations of receiving Christmas cards and special gifts, celebrating family traditions, and creating memories, all of which often lead to disappointments. These then feed into next year's memory when it is forced to return to the past. The older you get, the greater the accumulation of sadness and regrets you have to work with. Ugh, this way of thinking is not for me!

Fall, 1956: Aging

Anais Nin, now 53, writes about aging: "there is a difference in the aging of men and women which I hope one day we can eradicate. The aging of man is accepted. He can age nobly like a prehistoric statue; he can age like a bronze statue, acquire a patina, can have character and quality. We do not forgive a woman aging. We demand that her beauty never change."

Sags, wrinkles, menopause, watching your looks fade, competing with the 20-somethings and their sharp minds and technical skills. Sometime around age 50, you realize that death applies to you whereas at 20, you were immortal.  It's time to eliminate the unessential, the irrelevant, the waste, the unimportant, and at 50, you can identify all of this. Can you identify the emphasis on beauty to be unessential, unimportant and eliminate it?

Summer, 1956: Hollywood

Anais Nin moves from the sleepy town of Sierre Madre to Hollywood in the Summer of 1956. It is actually Silver Lake where she lives and will live for the rest of her life, in addition to maintaining a residence in New York with her husband. She lives in this Los Angeles district with Rupert Pole who left his job with the forestry service to teach junior high. She has been married to both men since March of 1955.

She meets new people, one whom she describes as transforming "this world into one livable for her, how she could create something out of it." It sounds as though Anais has found another person who believes in the power of the artist.

She reads new books, among them Simone de Beauvoir's The Mandarins, which describes how "people use political ideas to hurt and fight each other, that it is not a dedication to the hungry or the poor, but to an ideology which would make each man the enemy of the one who does not think as he does." It sounds like politics today.

Anais also reads an autobiography called Tiger of the Snows about climbing Mount Everest. Some argue that such ventures are taken on simply to satisfy one's ego. Others say is provides a good example of courage and endurance. Anais writes, "I read it as a metaphor. It seemed to me that all of us are trying to climb Mount Everest. That we do risk wounds, falls, precipices, frozen feet and hands, snow burn, snow blindness." What is your Mount Everest?

Spring, 1956: Fewer Children

Anais Nin reflects on an afternoon of babysitting three children:

"I have now known community living. But I am still convinced that these people who are so proud of giving birth and raising three children are giving less to the world than Beethoven, or Paul Klee, or Proust. It is their conviction of their virtuousness which distresses me. I would like to see fewer children and more beauty around them, fewer children and better educated ones, fewer children and more food for all, more hope and less war. I was not proud at all of having helped three children with faces like puddings or oatmeal to live through a Sunday afternoon. I would have felt prouder if I had written a quartet to delight many generations."

I'm with Anais. Talk of strollers and fertility treatments bores me. My friends with kids display a restrained fascination with my weekends exploring the city or my trips to NYC, where people have more to talk about than their kids. To each his own; we all have our own visions of what we want our lives to look like.

January, 1956: Mea Culpa

Anais Nin gives every month of her diary a title, and this month's title is "Mea Culpa." I confess, I had to look "Mea Culpa" up. I found it is a Latin phrase that translates to "my mistake" or "my fault." It is an examination of conscience for Catholics who wish to repent.  Anais writes about examining her friendships and judging herself at fault in all of them, which is a heavy realization to bear. She feels ashamed of herself.

She is not the only one repenting. Edith Piaf and Enigma have songs entitled "Mea Culpa" that you can listen to on YouTube. The latter features images of a Victoria's Secret model to add interest and further engage you to realize it is your fault, your error, your guilt. And this week, after Romney's defeat in the presidential election, a Colorado University professor called his earlier prediction of a landslide victory mea culpa.

Winter, 1955 - 1956: Vision of the World

This is a long diary entry by Anais Nin, and there are several points which struck me:

- she still has an obsession about having an expanded life. She rebels against mediocrity and wants a life in depth.

- she is wondering if she is well, saying she cannot pretend lightness, realizing she must have a desire to get well in order to actually get well.

- she has found ways to lighten, minimize, and accelerate housework. She has more energy for it when she doesn't fret over it. She wants to rid the house of all nonessentials. She doesn't want her energy resources to be drained by work on the house and garden.

- she reflects on Henry Miller who never strained, took everything as it came, made no efforts, did not feel responsible.

- she says we select our vision of the world by selecting what we see, record, observe. She says it's your choice; you create the vision.

- she wants an artist's life with few possession, simple surroundings, a simple way of life requiring little money and little compromise. She dreams of a simple, uncomplicated economic life, with finances in the background, not the foreground. She says it takes courage to live this way, committed to no one, subjected to no restrictions.

Fall, 1955: Analysis In, Neurosis Out

Anais Nin is high on analysis as she says:

"To sum up an extraordinary change caused by analysis. A month without depressions, anxieties, or nervousness. I feel installed in the present. I give myself to it. I no longer feel angers, walls, hostilities in relation to the world. My criticalness has lessened. I enjoy what comes. I am not nervous beforehand. I am gay and free. The fears have decreased, the fears of being unable to earn a living, the fears of losing love. There is less rebellion, more smoothness and lightness in living. There is an ability to throw off anxiety. There is no bitterness, no friction, and my anger against America for not accepting my work has gone. Having fewer conflicts I get less tired and accomplish more. I can do housework half a day, write half a day and still go out at night. Lightness and a feeling of strength. It all consolidated this month. It is true I may die without seeing Bali but then I have other things to make up for that. I can make one human being happy. I am close to one human being and closer than before to others. My genuine gentleness is coming back. I do not expect others to love or understand my work. I am not bitter or hurt. So much accomplished. I went to a party; in the past a part of me would hold back because the people were not interesting; this time I entered uncritically, accepting it on its own level. Contentment. It took me a lifetime to learn that happiness is in quiet things, not the peaks of ecstasy. I am grateful for what I have. I feel reintegrated into the human family. I see Americans as people in trouble, not happy on a deep level. I want to help, to teach. To share and impart the wholeness I feel and the strength. I feel strength from my effort to learn first aid. I have overcome the neurosis at last."

Fall, 1955: LSD

Anais Nin participates in an experiment involving taking the drug LSD under the supervision of a psychiatrist and in the presence of two other participants: a biologist and a painter. It was thought that a writer, Anais, could describe the experience more articulately than a previous experience described by another painter had been.

It took about 20 minutes to take effect, then everything started liquefying. Other images such as split selves and standing alone on another planet were experienced. At one point, everything turned to gold, including Anais.

After the experience, Anais contemplated whether these experiences were new, unfamiliar, unknown, and concluded that they were not; most of the images were either in her writings or the writings of other authors. She determined that the drug did not reveal a new world but it did shut out the interferences of the real, known world so that one could be alone with one's dreams, fantasies, and memories, which made it easier to gain access to the subconscious life.

The bottom line for Anais is that drugs provide a passive experience whereas real living provides an active experience, which is preferred so long as we have courage to act out our dreams.

Summer, 1955: Small Talk

Why do we talk about ________ (fill in the blank: the weather, politics, sports, our kids)? Aren't there more important or interesting things to talk about?

Anais Nin is intent on enhancing, heightening, adding charm to daily living and enjoys discovering like-minded companions. Instead of exchanging photos of kids, why not exchange photos of castles you once lived in? Instead of talking about the weather, why not talk about the masquerade you attended?

Spring, 1955 Claustrophobia of the Soul

Anais Nin frequently confronts and discusses her neurosis. She says:

"For a neurosis such as mine, to take roots means to be rooted to a situation of pain. To have a fixed home, a fireplace to sit by, a view, seemed dangerous (concealing as they do the bars of a cage). To take roots to me means cutting off avenues of escape, avenues of communication with the rest of the world. So that against the wish for repose, there is an impulse to remain mobile, fluid, to change surroundings."

She continues: "At times I do feel like a snail who has lost his shell. I have to learn to live without it. But when I stand still, I feel claustrophobia of the soul, and must maintain a vast switchboard with an expanded universe, the international life, Paris, Mexico, New York, the United Nations, the artist world. The African jungle seems far less dangerous than complete trust in one love, than a place where one's housework is more important than one's creativity."

Some take comfort in having roots, staying put, feeling secure. Others, like Anais, feel like caged animals with a loss of freedom and must constantly explore, shake things up, get out of the box. Which side do you relate to?

Winter, 1954 - 1955: Anger

Anais Nin's psychoanalyst, Dr. Bogner, has insights on anger. "Dr. Bogner's concept is that if you are already angry you tune in on what feeds your anger and on the experience of other angry people. The anger is increased and multiplied. If you examine it at its source, the origin of it, you can deal with it alone, but not with a magnified anger out of one's control," Anais quotes the doctor.

"I spend a great deal of time trying to find the culprit, the origin of my angers. Dr. Bogner said it was because I cannot bear to see myself as a person capable of anger. I always tried to divert it, by understanding, by compassion, by justifying others' behavior. But repression of anger causes intensification of it," she continues.

"You pick up the waves you want to pick up. There is always hostility and cause for anger in the air. But like radio waves, you pick up what confirms you in your anger, what harmonizes with the image you wish to make," Dr. Bogner tells Anais.

Anais works to remove the power of what makes her angry. She knows that the anger must be dissolved because it is toxic and corrodes joy. How do you stop being angry? Even if you know the source of your anger, how do you stop thinking about it, feeding it? Is it simply a matter of replacing angry thoughts with happy thoughts whenever you realize what you are thinking about? You are what you think, so put good thoughts in your mind - is that it?

Fall, 1954: Return to Paris

Anais Nin had not been to Paris since she left in 1940, and she returns in the fall of 1954.

She once lived overlooking Montparnasse Cemetery, and since that time, she has lost both her father and her mother as well as Dr. Rene Allendy and Dr. Otto Rank.

She sees a cafe with small round tables, just big enough for two people and two glasses of wine, just right for intimacy. The cafes are crowded with people who have time to sit outside and have interesting, engaging conversation.

She stays in Hotel Crillon, where, like the cafe, it is not new and glossy as it would be in America, but lived in, human, with the feel of people who had lived richly, deeply.

She walks along the Seine, where she sees hobos and a small bookshop and barges and boats on the water.

She seeks out her houseboat, La Belle Aurore. It had been moved from Paris to Neuilly by her before she left Paris in 1940. It was no longer in Neuilly, so she looked in Bougival but couldn't find it.

She walks the streets for hours among the small and intimate art shops, bookshops, antique shops, bookstalls, with their displays of creativity and style.

The Paris Anais Nin knew is still alive and well.