Tishnar

This little story is about a woman who dreams of being invisible, of being left alone, of being in another world, and when her dream finally comes true, she realizes she doesn't want those things at all.

It's a foggy day in Paris; the woman is walking, and things seem as if in a dream. She boards a bus and realizes it is destined for "another world" and won't stop until it gets there. She pleads with the conductor to stop, let her get off the bus. He says that people often make the same mistake she has been: wishing to be taken away.

But when they realize what they are leaving behind, they realize they really don't want to go.

Alchemy

This is Anais Nin's "Great Writer" story, which she finished in December, 1930. She felt it was good and was satisfied with it, but Titus, her editor, did not like it, and it was rejected by Vogue.

In the story, visitors come to the home of the "great writer." They notice the front gate to the home which is not exactly as described in the book - the books describes a gate which is a composite of this gate and the neighbor's. They recognize the servants from the stories, although some of their traits are not exactly as described in them.

The great writer's wife greets the visitors and admits she has been the muse for three of his characters and that their white poodle was the muse for children he described in his stories. The visitors leave the home and realize the great writer takes elements from his real life and mixes them (like a chemist would) to create new elements, thus turning ordinary people, places, and things into something extraordinary.

Our Minds are Engaged

This is a story written by Anais Nin around 1930. It seems to be drawn from her relationship with her cousin Eduardo.

The woman in the story is fragile, pale, timid, working on a play, with a carefully arranged home that serves as a background to her "imaginative costumes," reading D.H. Lawrence.

The man in the story uses "feline gestures," has a "lavish voice," has been in love with both women and men. He wants a weak woman, a woman like the woman in the story used to be when she was a teenager when they met. She has grown into a woman who knows and understands herself and is no longer weak.

The woman and man were never lovers. They had an intellectual connection, and once that was formed, it was awkward to evolve towards a physical connection. They talked about art and writing, dreams and fulfillment.

Their relationship has never been defined, has tension, needs resolution. She realizes in the end that he is not capable of loving her. He wants to dominate. He wants to be the better writer. She has become a strong woman, and they both know it. A relationship as lovers would never work. Resolution has been reached.

Red Roses

A woman wanted, "desired most painfully," red roses. She could not wait patiently for them to come to her naturally, in time, delivered by someone else when THEY were ready to send them. She needed them now when SHE was ready.

She had them delivered to her home, marked, "from your lover." The beautiful red roses lit up her poor, decrepit house. She cannot bear the joy the red roses bring to her; she feels like a woman now, having been sent red roses by a man, a lover. She has changed. Her desires have been fulfilled and she cannot bear it. The pleasure was too great.

She takes the red roses to the church and offers them there.

A Dangerous Perfume

This is another story written around 1930 and published in 1977 in "Waste of Timelessness." As with many of her stories, it appears to be about Anais Nin herself.

Lyndell is the character which I believe represents Anais. She is wearing "her most becoming costume," attending to some uninteresting business which does not make her happy: meeting with a former landlady. When Lyndell lived in the apartment, "she had enlivened it with vivid colored pottery, silk hangings and colored lamps." Now it was dull and gray.

The landlady was upset because the apartment still smelled of Lyndell's perfume and couldn't be lived in anymore, couldn't be slept in. The perfume reminded the landlady of Lyndell and her "splendid dresses" and "strangely altered face." The landlady is jealous of Lyndell because she creates around herself "a sort of misty and treacherous atmosphere." She tells Lyndell, "everything about you looks beautiful. You have a gift for setting, for poses, and gestures, for clothing yourself. Your voice has a peculiar tremor, and your face is haunting."

The landlady wants to be like Lyndell, wants to be interesting and have interesting experiences, such as entertaining men who are not her husband. When  the landlady learns that the man Lyndell entertained was not a lover, that he only kissed her once, it changes her entire perception of Lyndell and the apartment and the perfume, and she now feels the apartment can be lived in.

The Dance which could not be Danced

This is a story by Anais Nin written in late 1929 or early 1930, which was published in 1977. It is only two pages long, but is filled with several words which are not part of my vocabulary:

violaceous - of a violet color

sybaritic - luxurious, sensual, voluptuous

sibilance - having a hissing or hushing sound

paradic - paradise?

sylphidine - sylphide? one of the world's oldest surviving romantic ballets

refulgent - shining brightly

There was a man standing in the shadows, outside of life. Life was gathered around the fountain, where women carried jugs of water on their heads. This vision caused a myriad of sounds and feelings in his head, and he called it a dance. In the layers of sound, everything became clear to him, and his tears were washed away.

A woman danced within herself, where no one could see her, to music which no one could hear. It became a smooth livingness, "a dance within a dance, a dream within a dream, stretching to infinity, with the perpetual cadence of inviolate dancing, inviolate living."

Is this an awakening? Or a death?

The Russian Who Did Not Believe in Miracles and Why

This is another story published in 1977 and written around 1930. It is about a woman and a man who meet in a café in Paris, just before he plans to throw himself into the Seine. He explains, "I'm through. No more money, and no more hopes of getting any."

The woman encourages him to start a new life by looking at life differently, where anything could happen, by moving to a new home, by making new friends, by changing. She says, "only desire it, and it works like Aladdin's lamp." And don't use money as an excuse.

She tells him she has had a boring life on the outside, but an exciting one on the inside. He tells her she should become a dancer, and they agree to meet again to see how both of their lives have changed.

Months later, they meet again, and she is a dancer in the chorus. Nothing has changed with him. He tells her his story: a woman once met him when he was down on his luck as he is now and changed him, by believing in him, which brought out his play-writing talents. When he became happy and successful, she lost interest in him and left to work on the next case.

The man wants to wallow in pity and wants the woman to stop believing in miracles and wallow with him.

The Gypsy Feeling

This story was written by Anais Nin the last half of 1929 or first half of 1930 and was published in 1977. It is about two women: Mariette, who seems to represent Anais Nin, and Lolita, a wild, free "gypsy" woman.

Mariette is a quiet woman on the outside, with more going on inside her, but she is too timid to reveal herself. She has no fire, but she is nice. She writes newspaper articles about dancing.

Lolita, on the other hand, has "a fierce smile," "a dark gold skin," "polished breasts," "shining hair," "rich curves," "is warm and moist," with a "healthy animal odor." She is married and has seven children and is dancer in Paris. An admirer describes her dancing as "so passionate, so full of gypsy emotion."

As Mariette is typing up her article, she realizes that she feels like dancing and suddenly gets a gypsy feeling: "no more walls, no more boundaries, no thought." She could do anything and everything she wanted to, whenever she wanted. She could be free, on the open road, full of gypsy feeling.

The admirer from the dance shows up at her hotel. He sees that Mariette now has what Lolita has: "You've got it, you've got it, the gypsy feeling!" he says and invites her to dinner.

The Fear of Nice

"Wrote another story, just like that, yesterday before dinner!" Anais Nin wrote in her diary on October 3, 1929. "The Fear of Nice" is drawn from various diary entries in March of 1929 when Anais and her husband were on a business trip in Nice, so like many of her early stories, it is autobiographical.

The story is set in Nice, where a woman listens to some serenaders and compares them to her own life: "out of tune," "so often played on cheap instruments," "funny little note," screechy" and "wobbly" notes. She is out to dinner with her husband and notices a man who had been throwing money to the seranaders at the table next to them.

The men talk; they are both businessmen but have other interests outside of business that inspire them more. The man is not impressed with Nice, saying it's for people who like to do nothing, that it makes him despise the activity it takes to be a successful businessman. The woman and her husband enjoy the life of leisure and the rest it provides. They get their energy renewed then return to real life.

At the end of the story, the man tells the woman: "It isn't Nice I'm afraid of, it's you." Anais Nin is the woman; who is the man? John Erskine?

The Song in the Garden

This is an early story written by Anais Nin in 1929 or 1930, which was published in 1977. It's about a girl who discovers there are two types of people in the world: those who hear the song in the garden and are not changed, and those who hear the song in the garden and are changed. The girl in the story is the latter.

She discovered early on there was something unusual about herself. She wanted to understand the adult world and be where things were happening. She was very sensitive and tried to find others who were like herself. She sat on the balcony and thought about this. She went to the beach and discovered more.

She observed some people make so much noise on the outside, they can't hear what's going on inside themselves. The girl began writing and decided that's what mattered most because she could read what she wrote again and again and relive those memories. Even when she was away from the beach and back on the balcony, she could relive her days at the beach by reading what she had written.

She discovered her father's library and books that were better than what she had written. She read about a bigger world, far away places, people who were different from those she knew. There were thousands of cities and beaches, and everything was colorful and interesting to her. She was never bored because she could spend all her time reading about these things.

Her father warned her not to read a certain book, so of course, she read it. It was about a woman who went to a dinner party, was drugged, became pregnant, and did not know who was the father of her child.

The girl learned new words and learned of new worlds. Her father had 6,000 books, read them, studied them, then put them away without changing his expression or his life. She couldn't understand how her parents could continue to fill their house with uninteresting people and spend their time in only one city and one beach when there was so much more to life, as revealed in the books. She realized she would have to see the world and do real living herself. The books were the key to the world.

She went to museums and ruins she learned about in the books. She learned the books weren't the key; the key to the universe was inside of herself because everyone is affected in a different way by the things they see; meaning is unique.

The girl knew now that she had to live with fervor and with intelligence; she also had to not only live for an idea, or die for it, but also fight for it. Passion was born in her. She was not one of those people who preferred chocolate, detective stories, a secure life. Instead, she was one of those people who tries new things, takes risks, expands her world, grows as a person.

Waste of Timelessness

Anais Nin wrote this short story in late 1930, but it wasn't published until about the time of her death in 1977. It's also known as "the boat story," and tells a story about Alain Roussel who symbolizes the unattainable. She had difficulty getting it published when she first wrote it; it was rejected by the Adelphi literary journal and Vogue magazine. Her friends who read and commented on the story gave her such feedback as: "I like your manner of not overdeveloping, of indicating and suggesting, so that you get the reader's imagination creating," Her husband suggested she develop the story, say more, make it more clear, but she felt she had said all there was to say.

In the story, a woman attends a party at a friend of the great writer Alain Roussel's house, but he was not in attendance. In the garden was a boat, which the woman untied from a tree. The boat drifted down a river, like a person drifts around in life, like a person who wants to just get away from everyone and everything. Twenty years later, the woman decides to stop wasting time and get on with her life, begin anew, as she ties the boat back to the tree in the garden. She has lived like wisteria, persistent in her stubbornness, refusing to behave differently. She's been searching for a world that will conform to her philosophy; she's been looking for something better, something that's been missing. She's trying to escape her current life and come back completely changed. Until now. Now, she realizes you can't always have magic; you can't always live an uncommon life; you can't always escape ordinary living. If you chase happiness, it becomes elusive, unattainable.

You have this life. Go live it.

Summer, 1974: Bali

Anais Nin read a book 27 years before her trip to Bali that made her wish to visit the island, and it took her 27 years for her wish to come true. It was "now or never" time for Anais, as she is 71 years old, fighting cancer, with failing health.

A few notes on her visit there:

- soft, caressing climate
- smell of sandalwood and spices, magnolias and frangipani
- overwhelming beauty of the Balinese with long, glossy black hair, honey-colored skin, and sinuous walk
- stayed in a bungalow facing the sea
- gravel paths lighted by bamboo lanterns
- had candlelit dinners with music
- state of reverie
- 10,000 temples, where women were not allowed during menstruation
- no ugly houses
- belief that harmony and balance of body create inner balance of spirit
- no jails - offender must leave the island forever
- life, religion, and art converge - everyone is an artist, creativity is natural and widespread
- absence of anger and strong emotions except laughter
- belief that death is a freeing of the soul

Anais Nin asked herself while she was there, "Will I come back?" Life is short; she did not return to this special island.

Spring, 1974: Survival Mode

Anais Nin is still coloring her hair and painting her nails while having digestive problems and a recurrence of cancer. She writes, "So much to live for - the shining love of friends, Piccolino's clowning, the life-giving pool, the birds." Also, "fascinating letters" and "beautiful photographs" come every day in the mail. She can't swim as many laps as she used to and has to give up her daily martini as it hurts her stomach. She is focused on Volume Six and staying alive long enough to get the diaries published.

Winter, 1973 - 1974: More on Aging

Anais writes, "I wish we could talk about aging. I was more concerned about that at thirty and forty than now at seventy. Because I found that if you live deeply, remain emotionally alive, curious, explorative, open to change, to new experiences, aging recedes. It is not chronological, it is psychic."

She continues, "I say transcend it. I'm able to write all day, to swim, to lecture, to travel. Of course, I had to learn my energy was not infinite, but only this year. I think the youthful spirit wins over the face and body. You look beautiful and interesting in your photograph. Free yourself from the false mask of aging: It is merely a moment of tiredness."

Anais is out in the world buying cotton or velvet Indian dresses, being joyous and free in Mexico or Tahiti, never bored, interested in everything, seeing, loving, and experiencing everything she can.

Fall, 1973: Aging

Anais, facing limitations of energy due to age and illness, visits Henry Miller who is recovering from a serious surgery. She refers to the "outrages of age, the cruelties, the slow corrosions," and further says, "I am glad Gonzalo died before being crippled. I hope the same will happen to me. I don't want to live as Miller has, limping, in pain, not able to travel and now for the second time undergoing major surgery. Henry once so healthy, joyous, lively. Tireless walker, hearty eater." Meanwhile, Anais goes to her doctor's office once a week to receive an injection because she is bleeding slightly, afraid of the cancer returning, and at times, living on tea and toast.

When you see an old person today, remember that they too were once healthy, joyous, lively.

Summer, 1973: Artist as Magician

Anais Nin receives an Honorary Doctorate of Art from the Philadelphia College of Art where she speaks, "impromptu, inspired as always by the theme of artist as magician."

Here is an excerpt from the transcript of her commencement address:

"As a writer I wanted simply to take all the various expressions of art into writing, and I thought each art must nourish the other, each one can add to the other. And I would take into writing what I learned from dancing, what I learned from music, what I learned from design, what I learned from architecture. From every form of art there is something that I wanted to include in writing, and I wanted writing, poetic writing, to include them all."

Art has the power to create something out of nothing, which can be lonely as those around us don't understand our art and alienate us from society. The artist risks this alienation to attract those who can relate to his work.

Spring, 1973: Say Yes to Everything

In a letter to a friend, Anais that she has always said "yes" to everything, which made her life complex. "But that is the only way we can live, having only one life."

She's given 58 lectures since the previous September, even though she's 70 years old and has cancer. She finished editing Volume Five of the Diary and is looking towards editing Volumes Six and Seven, knowing she doesn't have much time left.

Anais mentions "Xeroxing" Volume Five - my how things have changed over the last 40 years!

It's easy to say "yes" to the things we want to do, but what if we said "yes" even to things we weren't sure we wanted to do? It's a philosophy and guiding principle of life that may bring many opportunities your way. It's a way not to live a safe life. Saying "yes" may bring fear as you challenge your comfort zone, open your eyes to new possibilities, and free up the time you spend thinking about whether you should say yes or no. A casual yes may lead to something spectacular.

If by saying yes to everything you get overwhelmed, then say yes to help!

Winter, 1972 - 1973: Anais Turns 70

Anais Nin turns 70 during this diary entry. Her are a few of her thoughts as she is coming into 70:

- she is depressed by the victory of Nixon
- she says being famous has enabled her to meet other artists, travel to other countries, discover new ideas
- she believes we need to make a synthesis between the public self and the private
- she feels some women make war on man, psychology, introspection, individuality
- her efforts are directed at liberating women psychologically, emotionally
- because of the radiation done for her cancer, she has to live on tea and toast when on lecture tours and can't have wine
- she loves the mixture of an active adventurous life matched by philosophy and psychological awareness
- she doesn't consider marriage any more difficult than other relationships with family, children, friends: "They all demand our fullest creativity. They do not happen miraculously."
- she writes to a friend: "Tomorrow I am seventy - and have no time to wait wait wait"

Fall, 1972: Life is Beautiful

Anais Nin says that her life is beautiful: "Work on the film. A warm pool, an enchanting playful dog. The sun. Indian cotton dresses in the closet." She is 69 years old, lecturing at colleges, living life in the public eye, and she is exhausted. She prefers a quiet life of writing, swimming, and playing with Piccolino, and the notoriety she has received has given her the financial freedom to live the quiet life when not on lecture tours.

Summer, 1972: Develop Yourself

Anais Nin believes in self-development. She writes, "Every human being should push his development and skills and creativity as far as possible, as only then does one become valuable to the community, valuable to others. It is wrong to hold people back to remain on the level with the herd. We need explorers, adventurers, pathfinders, models, inventors. The real democracy is to develop yourself as much as possible, for then you can teach and help others."

So, be an explorer. Ask "Why?" Get out of the box, and look somewhere else. Dig deeper. Look at things from a different perspective. Look at the forest instead of the trees. Just try one of your ideas, and see where it goes. Challenge assumptions and rules. Ask, how would Anais approach this?

Spring, 1972: Turn the Negative into Positve

Anais Nin writes in a letter that she has known anxiety, depression, and discouragement - haven't we all? - but she is somehow able to transform these feelings into something positive, something others can use to heal and restore their life by reading her diary.

She writes in another letter: "I have the happy faculty of tuning in to only the positive or creative side of people and totally disregarding the hostile, the fake, and the hypocritical. It is my formula for not despairing." She further states, "my whole effort has been to turn the negative into positive."

How does she does this? By developing her interior being. By engaging in a life-long quest for self-awareness and identity. By being in tune with other people, listening to them, and actually hearing what they have to say. By connecting with people.

Can we also do what Anais has done?

Winter, 1971 - 1972: Narcissism and Ego

This diary entry contains excerpts from many of the letters Anais Nin has received as a result of publication of her diaries. Her work consists of freeing people emotionally, helping people understand each other, and avoiding hatred and war. People are responding to her by the thousands.

She writes: "There was no ego in the Diary, there was only a voice which spoke for thousands, made links, bonds, friendships. All the clichés about self-absorption were destroyed. There was no one self. We were all one. The more I developed my self, the less mine it became. If all of us were as willing to expose this self, we would feel neither alone nor unique. I was so tired of the platitudes hurled at me. The two most misinterpreted words in the world: narcissism and ego. The simple truth was that some of us recognized the need to develop, grow, expand - occupations which are the opposite of those two words. To desire to grow means you are not satisfied with the self as it is, and the ego is exacting, not indulgent."

Fall, 1971: Year of Letters

Anais Nin describes 1971 as the year of letters: "The Diary became an exchange of letters. It was an avalanche of letters, all of them personal, intimate and like the demands of a friend." She gets up early every morning and opens a 6" briefcase that is full of letters to be answered. Every person feels they know her because she has revealed herself to them in the diary; they want her to know them as well and send her photographs and describe their lives in intimate detail.

Meanwhile, she has cancer and must force herself to rest. The love she feels from the letters and daily swims keep her from sinking into depression.

Summer, 1971: Students

Anais Nin continues to visit colleges, giving lectures and commencement addresses. She writes, "the students are the majority of my readers, and we have a rapport. They crowd around me; we sit on the floor, and we talk freely and intimately."

She receives "tons of mail" and realizes "women are going through a great crisis as they enter the larger world of man, fearing they must give up being a woman. They make me talk, but they refuse to acknowledge that some problems are personal, psychological, emotional, not all political."

Inner freedom comes from conquering our fears, and it takes work, she says.

Spring, 1971: Women's Movement

Flashback to the 1970's -- Anais Nin is giving lectures to feminist groups, and the second wave of the women's movement is at its height. (The first wave was in the 1920's and focused on voting rights among other things).

At one lecture, she "was subjected to outlandish attacks by aggressive women because I did not talk about the child-care center or equality in salary. I explained I was seeking to liberate them first of all psychologically so that they could produce the effective changes they wanted." She added that they are only adding to the fragmentation of the world because they do not know how to work in harmony. They are adding to hatred and division. It takes intelligent women to develop the human being and solve inequalities.

Anais receives a letter from a feminist who supports her and wishes that women like the aggressive women noted above would see beyond the details of the movement to true liberation, which comes from liking ourselves. She hopes that someday, they will understand, and encourages Anais to continue pursuing her dream.

Winter, 1970 - 1971: Musings

Anais Nin covers a variety of topics in this diary entry:

- she seeks permissions from Edmund Wilson and Gore Vidal for her portraits of them

- she states in a letter that she is now a political activist, though she didn't used to be

- she reads a script of Hermann Hesse's Steppenwolf

- she speaks of the "Christmas neurosis" - we want it to be magic, but it's false - people you haven't heard from all year suddenly send you a Christmas card

- some handicaps and pressures come from ourselves; examine this before we blame others for the traps in which we find ourselves

- "liberation is a state of mind, of being. It has to be achieved from within, and then it becomes an influence, it radiates outwardly, it achieves its energy and its aims creatively."

- she works 7:00 a.m. until midnight to keep up with letters and lectures and lists 25 places she has either lectured at or been invited to lecture

- "most women have felt what I have felt, but not all have actually been able to articulate it. The hardest things to write about are your emotions and intuitions."

- "very often, we fall into traps we set for ourselves, blaming our situation for our failure to act. We must become self-aware and self-honest so that we can deal with ourselves."

- she doesn't regret not having children. "I've created books, been a mother to people I have known, such as my students. I certainly don't think that every woman should have children, nor that women who aren't mothers are 'unfeminine.' Women shouldn't have to feel obligated to fulfill some obsolete definition of what a woman should be."

- "I put my energy in therapy as others do in religion or philosophy."

- she has coffee, toast, and eggs for breakfast

- she realizes she is helping women flower

Fall, 1970: Paris in the Fall

Anais Nin is in Paris again for a television show appearance. She rehearses for the show, visits relatives, and listens to a classical music concert playing in the Tuileries.

She has many readers now that the diaries are published and spends much time responding to their letters. She tells them how she has created her own world and decided who to let in, discarding who and what did not belong to her image of the outer world of which she dreamed, shutting out TV and the media who deal so much with sides of human nature she doesn't want to let into her world.

Summer, 1970: Return to Paris

Anais Nin returns to Paris for the publication of the second volume of her Diary. She dines at the Coupole, Closerie des Lilas and Café du Dome. She visits her home in Louveciennes and finds it run down and neglected. She visits Villa Seurat and Place Clichy where Henry Miller once had a studio and an apartment. She walks through the Bois and along the Seine.

She plans to return to Paris on September 3, 1970 for television appearances.

Spring, 1970: Masculine & Feminine Traits

Anais Nin believes that all of us possess both masculine and feminine traits, and she would like to see us stop using those terms and just try to find balance and a way to live together. She says we all have days of courage and days of weakness and that we need interdependence. We can find liberation by loving each other and working together and joining forces and being true to who we are. Psychoanalysis, she says, is the only way to know who we are.

Winter, 1969 - 1970: Tumor

Anais Nin finds out she has a tumor in her uterus, and her alternatives are radiation, which has a 75% chance of healing, or surgery, which would leave her with two open holes in her body. She opts for the radiation and runs pleasant scenes and images through her mind during the six-minute duration of it, every day for three weeks. She is weakened by it and receives few visitors. She wonders, "Why now, when all my wishes are fulfilled?"

Fall, 1969: The Joys of Reading

We all love reading to expand our worlds, be entertained, learn, be inspired, be intrigued. Anais Nin writes a nice tribute to reading in this diary entry:

"The reading of books is in itself the most beautiful education of all. Because of reading I became acquainted with the entire world, physical, intellectual, historical, scientific. My life was expanded. The knowledge of what existed in the world, in other countries, of the possibilities and potentialities of life, prepared me for experience, for the unknown, for unfamiliar situations. Only by reading does one possess such a power to travel, to visit all the lands, to make friends with characters of all periods, so that one learns to observe the riches of the present and the possible loves and friendships around us. Through books, I discovered everything to be loved, explored, visited, communed with. I was enriched and given the blueprints to a marvelous life, I was consoled in adversity, I was prepared for both joys and sorrows, I acquired one of the most precious sources of strength of all: an understanding of human beings, insight into their motivations, I also learned from books how to enhance what needed to be enhanced, by understanding, and by aesthetics. Books are the greatest companions, confessors, confidantes, tutors, a source of pleasure, a cure for loneliness, and to find one, in the middle of an island in Tahiti, in the heart of the Moroccan desert, or at an airport where one is stranded for a night, is to find the friend who reminds us we are not alone."

Some of my favorite books in addition to everything by Anais Nin, Hermann Hesse, and May Sarton include The Stranger by Albert Camus, The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath, A Moveable Feast by Ernest Hemingway, and The Fountainhead by Ayn Rand.

What are your favorites?

Summer, 1969: Morocco

Anais is back in Morocco. Dates and figs. Copper tea sets. Veiled women. Desert quietness. Contemplation. Goats. Mountains. An oasis. Camel markets. Patient donkeys. Mint tea. Snake charmers. Couscous.

"Travel is seeking the lost paradise," she says. "Fez, the history that travels within you. Visit Fez, the spiritual and cultural capital of Morocco," says the ad in the New York Times.

Spring, 1969: Honey, Ping Pong, and Swimming

Some ideas to try -

Anais Nin recommends to her brother Joaquin that when he feels tired, "take a spoonful of honey after a meal. It is not fattening, and you'll be amazed at the effect."

Henry Miller's favorite pastime is playing ping pong - he has a table in his dining room. He can still play even when old and limping.

Anais's favorite pastime is swimming. She swims in her "Tahitian pool two or three times a day to keep fit" and because she loves to swim and feel the water and escape gravity.

Winter, 1968 - 1969: the Poet and the Scientist

"Only when the poet and the scientist work in unison will we have living experiences and knowledge of the marvels of the universe as they are being discovered," Anais Nin says.

Meanwhile, Diary Three is set to be published in September, 1969; The Novel of the Future, a book about writing, was published in 1968.

Fall, 1968: Japanese Literature

Anais Nin feels Japanese literature has "all the qualities lacking in Western literature. It has poetry, subtlety, psychological depths, aesthetic style, and a preponderance of light in the sense of illumination from within. I like so much its emphasis on inner states, moods, feelings, and the fusion of moods with nature. I liked the sensitivity in the meticulous study of relationships, the care for nuances, the beauty of the physical descriptions, and its clear, uncluttered quality, like that of Japanese prints, stating only the essential and suggesting a forest by the study of a branch."

Summer, 1968: Mexico and Asia

During a trip to Acapulco, having been to Asia between now and her last trip to Mexico, Anais Nin is aware of the similarities between the two: "passion for flowers and birds, arrangement of fruits and vegetables in the market, a sense of design." Manners, rituals, even the type of bed in which they sleep, all the same.

Spring, 1968: Death of Martin Luther King, Jr.

Anais writes that she became "hysterical" when she heard the news that Martin Luther King, Jr. was assassinated on April 4, 1968.

She writes: "Could not bear the cruelty, the horror of it. Knew what a deep wound it would cause the black people. I never espoused a cause, but the cause of the black people affects me deeply. I joined the vigil for Dr. King at Pershing Square in Los Angeles. That death was full of tragic meaning, humanly and politically. That it could happen was to me the darkest moment of American history."

Winter, 1967 - 1968: Playing Ostrich

Anais Nin is busy:

 - she is nominated a daughter of Mark Twain

 - her books are taught at Queens College in a course in avant-garde literature

 - she is invited to lecture at the Library of Congress

- her work is translated into French, German, Italian, Swedish, Danish, Flemish, Catalonian, and Japanese

Her life in L.A. is very conducive to working - it is peaceful and serene, and there are few interruptions.

Her life in New York, on the other hand, leads her to "play ostrich" at the end of the day. All she can do is drink wine or beer or take a sleeping pill so she can sleep and have enough energy for the next day.

Fall, 1967: Liberation comes from within

Anais Nin writes this line in her diary in reference to the idea that Japanese women marry American men in order to be liberated. But of course, this does not liberate them. It's the same concept as saying, when I accomplish some future thing (get married, lose weight, graduate, move to a certain place, get that job), I'll be happy. Liberation, like happiness, comes from within, and it starts right now. The same is true for the opposite - feeling of loss of freedom, unhappiness - they also come from within, from an attitude, a way of thinking. You get a handle on your mind so that your thoughts contribute to the life you want to create. Not talking about the things that drag you down takes the focus off those things so you can switch your attention to positive things. You can chose, you can decide to be a Tigger instead of an Eeyore.

Summer, 1967: Tahiti

Anais Nin visits Tahiti, where "what predominates is the caressing atmosphere, the scent of tiara flowers, the tinkle of shell necklaces, the beauty of the brown women. The atmosphere unties your nerves, opens the pores of your skin so that you feel like a flower opening in the dew."

People have a need to dream, to hope, especially when going through a rough patch, it is helpful to dream about a place you've visited or hope to visit. You can transport yourself out of your current experience, if only for a few moments.

Spring, 1967: Freedom in America

Anais Nin writes, "The freedom in America is an illusion. Transplanted from Europe, I was fully aware of the opposite of freedom in the air, so much Puritan disapproval, so much of the spectator and the voyeur, watching one live and jealous of those who live. So much negative criticism, so much hidden hostility, like the hostilities of old maids locked in small towns who sent poison pen letters and persecuted lovers. A sin to look inward, they feel, and yet that is why there is so much loss of identity. A sin to be personal, and yet that is why there is so much loneliness and alienation."

I am surprised she felt so much Puritan disapproval, living in New York and L.A., but I am not surprised she felt negative criticism, hidden hostility, loss of identity, and loneliness in these urban centers. So many different people, trying to get along in the world, ending each day at home to eat, drink, watch TV to escape the hustle, bustle, wear and tear of the city, feeling bored and lonely, waking up to do it all over again the next day.

January, 1967: Just Not Interested

In this entry of her diary, Anais Nin writes, "But tonight I could not communicate with people. There are times when the world I created and its personages seem more vivid than the ones before me."

She goes further to say, "There came a time when Proust was no longer interested in life itself, but in completing his work. Have I reached this point? Or is this an intermittent watertight compartment in which I find myself only when the people are not congenial?"

Does this happen as one grows older? Anais is about to turn 64 years old. She is finally enjoying life as a famous writer, along with the notoriety she has dreamed for. She's become very focused on finishing the editing and publication of her diary before she dies. Everything else has lost its importance.

What if, like many people her age, she didn't have this work to complete, nothing to drive her? Is this when depression sets in? Anais herself has battled with depression, even though she has enjoyed an interesting life, mixed and mingled with interesting people, been a writer with a self-created schedule and life. What would she feel like if she just had a normal life, a usual existence, like most people have?

Winter: 1966 - 1967: Anna ees

Anais Nin opens volume 7 of her diary with: "At a lecture I am asked to pronounce my name three times. I try to be slow and emphatic, "Anais - Anais - Anais. You just say 'Anna' and then add 'ees,' with the accent on the 'ees.'"

If you live in a watertight compartment of your self-created world, you may complain of loneliness she says of her friend.

In the 1930's Anais was more interested in passion than in intellect, more interested in love than in psychology. Now in the 1960's she can look back on her life as a composite, which is revealing its purpose and meaning. Passion and love, intellect and psychology, they were all part of her life, all part of who she has become.

Fall, 1966: New Woman

Anais Nin writes, "The past has not left me bitter or vengeful. I face the love, tributes I receive with pleasure. I am like a new woman, born with the publication of the Diary. This new woman is at ease with the world because whatever shyness is leftover from the past is helped by the fact that when I enter a room or a lecture hall people know me already and they rush toward me. Their warmth creates a climate in which I can open, respond, flower, return their love."

Isn't it true the way you believe you are perceived by the world affects the way you present yourself to the world? If you feel you are popular and well-liked, you present a happier, more out-going, confident face to the world. If you feel you are unliked or invisible, you present a shy, quiet, reserved self to the world.

Summer, 1966: Anais Journeys to the East

Anais Nin's Japanese publisher invites her to Japan to celebrate the publication of her novel, A Spy in the House of Love. She lands in Tokyo and visits the Imperial Hotel, designed by Frank Lloyd Wright. She has tea, lunch in a tempura bar, dinner in a geisha restaurant.

Anais says, "In Japan I had a weeping fit. The sweetness, kindness, consideration touched me. For once in my life I felt I was treated as I always treated people."

She also notes there are no homeless people, and "everybody is working, busy, disciplined. Cleanliness, being a religion, is practiced continuously."

Anais believes that Asia has discovered two remedies for the cruelty of man: art and religion. Without these, people are full of hate. There is a consideration for others that mitigates crime against others. Religion, she says, seems to be at the bottom of contentment.

She notes there is "no garbage on the floor, no defacement, no obscene scribblings as in New York's subways" on the trains in Japan. Everything is clean and cared for.

Spring, 1966: Volume I of the Diary is Published

Everything is happening for Anais Nin now that Volume I of the diary is published.

- she talks and reads from Henry Miller's Letters on a TV program

- part of her portrait of Otto Rank will be published in the Rank Journal

- she receives an invitation to visit Japan

- she reviews the plays of D.H. Lawrence for The New York Times

- she gives a talk at Barnard College

- she appears on Camera Three, reading from the diary

- she has a book-signing party at the Gotham Book Mart

- her mail box is full of letters and invitations

- she begins editing Volume II of the diary

Winter, 1965 - 1966: Neurosis

Anais Nin says, "Writing to a Belgian poet I admitted knowing the states he describes, the anxieties, missing heartbeats, failing intuitions, deserts, disconnection from other human beings, but I added that I had waged a constant and stubborn war against my neurosis. I never believed that creativity came from such seasons in hell as the romantics did. I gave my faith to psychoanalysis, and after many years the energy I wasted on anxieties ceased and I was able to work better, to live better, to commune with others, to be relaxed in the world. I had more intuitions, more states of illumination, more awareness, more inspiration and fertility than before. I truly believe that a perpetual season in hell can be exorcised."

Summer, 1965: Horror of Exposure

Anais Nin continues to discuss publication of her diary and fears associated with it. Her primary fear is hurting others because she has written the diary uncensored, as if no one would ever read it. Many people have what she calls a "horror of exposure" and don't want to be in the diary, or they want to read and approve what she has written about them before publication.

Another fear is how literary critics will respond. They have been so negative towards her novels; will they react the same way to her diary? Anais herself has a "horror of exposure" to the maliciousness of the world. She knows this fear is minor, however, as every artist has taken this risk as they bring their work to the world.

On the other hand, Anais Nin has faith in her diary and feels it is her best writing. She feels the introspection documented in her diary is her method of accomplishing her life's journey of self-creation. She disagrees with the concept that diary writing is narcissistic or neurotic. She is simply obsessed with portraying her life's experience and is driven to get the diary published before she dies.

Spring, 1965: Jean ("Yanko") Varda

Anais Nin writes about the Varda collages at the Brand Library in Glendale. Varda is an artist known for his collages. Anais reads her portrait of him from her book, Collages.

Since Anais's diary writing is reduced to a minimum because of the correspondence she is exchanging with various people, there is not much else to write about, so let's share some favorite quotes from 2012:

"Live your life like it's golden, because the reason we work is to do the things in life that we really want to do." - HR director quoted in the Red Eye

"When in doubt, go for it, whether it's wearing something you never thought you could wear, or doing something you never thought you could do." - Glamour magazine

"If someone resonates with what I say, they think I'm a genius. If someone thinks what I say is horrifying, they think I'm an idiot." - Alanis Morissette

"Fashion, like art, music, travel, literature and film, is one of the little gifts we get in this world." - Nina Garcia.

"Happiness is the only true measure of personal success. Making others happy is the highest expression of success." - Yahoo news

"I don't go on vacation to vacate my life but to fill it." - from the book, Drinking the Rain