Summer, 1937: Luxury

As a child, Anais Nin experienced poverty after her father left his family, and her mother had to make sacrifices after being left on her own with three kids. Anais feels that the fewer possessions she has, the richer she feels, so she seeks poverty, as all real artists do. She's not sure why - does it bring her nearer to spiritual values? Is it because she was born under the sign of Pisces, the giver? She surrenders possessions and luxuries so that those around her can have paper and a typewriter and paint and food so they have hope and life and can create.

She keeps only what is necessary to her creativity. It creates a light atmosphere, order, to have not one useless, superfluous object. She gives away everything she doesn't need so that nothing accumulates or weighs her down. It gives her a religious pleasure to give; she gives with love, and this gives it meaning.

Anais is moving to a cheaper place. She has denied herself vacations, luxuries, and clothes. Sacrifices. Anais feels this is especially difficult for her because she feels her body was built for luxury. Her throat hurts if she smokes a cheap cigarette. She gets sick if she drinks cheap wine. Her skin spoils if she uses cheap beauty products. However, she still has the maid... Some things can't be sacrificed. The maid frees up her time from doing household chores so that she can write in the Diary.

What have you given up and why? What things can't you give up?

March, 1937: Broke but Beautiful

Anais Nin is broke. Her husband gives her an allowance, but by the fourth of the month, it is gone. She is providing for her friends, paying for for rent, doctors, clothes, food. She owns only two pairs of mended stockings, two pairs of worn out shoes. She has no cold cream or face powder. There's no wine, no coal.

Yet, she feels happy and lovely. When you care for people, you are attractive to not only them, but to yourself. Anais has been asking herself since her father told her she was ugly in her youth if she was beautiful. She looked in the mirror, she looked into the eyes of boys and of the painters for whom she modeled. She had a turning point as a model and started to feel beautiful, exotic, different from the others.

Many people, probably women in particular, lack confidence in their youth. By the time they are in their twenties or thirties, they realize they are not so bad, they are okay, and wonder why they were so hard on themselves and had so many doubts when they were younger. All this time worrying and wondering was wasted time, they now realize.

February, 1937: The Diary

Anais Nin has struggled with herself on whether or not to continue the Diary. Some tell her to scrap it so that she can focus on writing novels and fiction, but her intuition tells her to continue it because it is her own personal creation. She views it as her art, which uses her feelings and emotions to create a new form to serve a new purpose. It is similar to other art forms such as painting and sculpture and pottery and architecture and novels and music, all creative products of a person's deepest desires.

Is the Diary an escape? Does it make her and keep her neurotic by allowing her to focus and analyze her life and by giving her the opportunity to re-read it and keep the past in the present because of its being documented? Is it a realistic or idealistic portrayal of her and her life?

We are all myth-makers about ourselves. We are unrecognized creative geniuses, martyrs. We create romantic images of ourselves. Anais Nin is no different.

January, 1937: The Dream

"I mastered the mechanisms of life the better to bend it to the will of the dream. I conquered details to make the dream more possible. With hammer and nails, paint, soap, money, typewriter, cookbook, douche bags, I created a dream. That is why I renounce violence and tragedy. I have made poetry out of science, I took psychoanalysis and made a myth of it. I mastered poverty and restrictions; I lived adroitly, intelligently, critically; I sewed and mended, all for the sake of the dream. I took all the elements of modern life and used them for the dream. I subjected New York to the service of the dream. And now it is all again a question of the dream versus reality. In the dream nobody dies, in the dream no one suffers, no one is sick, nobody suffers," Anais Nin begins this entry of her Diary.

I love this. Anais makes a conscience effort to form and mold her life to match her vision of it. She wants her world to be perfect for her. She wants to "build an individually perfect world." It does take a strong vision and much effort and perseverance to do this. She recognizes that the bigger world can sometimes interfere when things like war or other events out of personal control occur. It makes it hard but not impossible to protect the individual world.

Anais has also become aware with the publication of Henry Miller's works and subsequent notoriety, that she may not be as great a writer as him. She knows the Diary is her form, where she feels most natural. She modifies her dream of becoming a great writer to writing slender little books outside of the Diary and perfecting what is natural, the Diary.

December, 1936: Time

Anais Nin rarely speaks of war in her Diaries, and when she does, she keeps it brief. In this entry of her Diary, it is New Year's Eve, and she has stayed up until 6:30 the next morning. She has a feeling that it could be the last night of drinking, dancing, laughing - the last night of pleasure, and she wants to make the most of it because tomorrow could be war and all the horrors that come with it - cannons, alarms, blood. She wants to drop the mediocre and create an extraordinary life.

Time is one of our precious commodities, and we seem to become aware of that fact only when it is threatened, whether by war or middle age or some other event. We want to have accomplishments, achievements, recognition, pleasures, a life worth having. We want to eliminate waste and the irrelevant and cut back to the essential. We realize it is now or never.

November, 1936: Emotional Attitude

In a letter to one of her patients in New York, Anais Nin speaks of affinity between our emotional attitude towards life and towards love. She quotes Gide: "he can do nothing for the happiness of others who does not know how to be happy himself." She also distinguishes between joy which can be contagious though egotistical and happiness which is deeper and can be given without possessing it.

Anais is happiest whenever she conquers what blocks her and is able to create something in the end. The process of creation itself may not bring happiness; in fact, it can be full of anguish and pain, but working and creating gives strength.This emotional strength, a large part of which is emotional attitude, brings us happiness in life and love.

Happiness usually requires action, activity, not passivity. You may feel happy watching your favorite TV show, but my guess is, you would feel happier in the end if you spent time creating something: a carrot cake, a poem to your lover, a picnic, a handwritten note to your mom, a painting of your girlfriend's favorite place.

October, 1936: Happiness

Anais Nin seeks the fairy tale. Around her, she sees Henry Miller as the celebrity after publication of his books, and she hears Gonzolo rant that neurosis is for the rich, a luxury; the poor are more concerned with putting bread on the table. A rehearsal for war takes place with airplanes simulating air attacks. Anais soaks it all in, is touched by everything around her. She feels happy but realizes it takes many things to make her happy, including the love of three different men.

What does it take to make me happy? Waking up naturally. Morning coffee. A long soak in a tub with bath salts. Walking outside in beautiful weather. Having someone to share experiences with and discuss life with. Solitude. Delicious food and drink. Getting enough sleep.What is happiness to you?