Anaïs Nin November: Elect the process of becoming

via.

Life is a process of becoming, a combination of states we have to go through. Where people fail is that they wish to elect a state and remain in it. This is a kind of death.

(Anaïs Nin. D. H. Lawrence : An Unprofessional Study. 1932.)

This is a challenge breathtaking in scope. Wanting to change is so much easier than actually having the courage of the deed. I think it is a thing that happens by degrees, so that you look at yourself one day and realize you are totally different than the person you had been six months or a year or a decade ago. Where we elect the state of stasis and suffer that kind of death is where we mistake sameness for security, security for happiness, happiness for living. I wanted for very long to stay hidden, because I thought there was safety in that.

Ibid.

It is not just about a rut. It’s more like a trench, and the longer you stay in it, the more likely you’ll be hit by a Howitzer if you try darting topside. You have to climb with calculation, sometimes big leaps to get over a tough, deeply rooted, scrabbly stretch, sometimes taking ages of care to navigate your foot to a safe path. I have no idea what waits at the top. It might not be happiness. But how much better to see the whole field and enter the battle than to cower at the bottom of the trench?

To elect to “become” is to elect to risk. Risk is frightening because, whether it pays off in your estimation or disappoints you horribly, it guarantees one certain result: change.

Anaïs Nin November: Nothing left to do

“Scream,” by windkittyhana on the deviantart.

Human beings can reach such desperate solitude that they may cross a boundary beyond which words cannot serve, and at such moments there is nothing left for them but to bark.

(Collages. 1964. p. 116.)

I am only alone if I am in the bath or driving. So the shower is where I generally get my barking out. I made an ocean in the pipes while I was pregnant, a terrible time for me because of the earth-destroying fights I would have with her father, and again when I left my husband, horrible silent sobs of shock and regret that would make me vomit. I have written before that I dislike crying or admitting to feeling feelings. But in the last few years, since this journal started, really, I’ve grown better at admitting to crying. I even sometimes let a few public tears go, if the occasion is momentuous enough that I forget myself, and I have oil on hand to keep my robot face from rusting.

All this context is by way of avoiding the content of this quote. I think I’ve sufficiently lambasted myself for one day (see below).

Anaïs Nin November: Always at least two women

via.

There were always in me two women at least,
one woman desperate and bewildered,
who felt she was drowning, and another
who would leap into a scene, as upon a stage,

via.

conceal her true emotions because they
were weaknesses, helplessness, despair,
and present to the world only a smile,
an eagerness, curiosity, enthusiasm, interest.

Ouch. That drew blood. I’m not sure I have the guts to keep doing this month. But I’m going to try.

Anaïs Nin November: Daily Batman — Always punished

All those who try to unveil the mysteries always have tragic lives.

At the end they are always punished.


(“The Mohican.” Under A Glass Jar, 1944.)

Anaïs Nin November: Inaugural edition feat. harsh self-audits

Well, hell and goddamn, a month for the O.G. navel-gazer. It’s difficult not to admire a woman who lived with such spontaneity combined with introspection, a kind of fearless but reflective courage uncharacteristic of the time. Kind of a startling oversight that this Anaïs Nin November hasn’t happened yet. Perhaps she is too good of an example of the merciless self-audit, and I become shamed by my own inability to look unflinching in to the abyss the way she did. Or the sex talk. Does that make me uncomfortable? Not sure. If it does, like, okay, but why all the breasts and vaginas then, if the talky talk is a problem? Where are my lines?

So… Sorry? Spilled milk. And impetus for improvement.

Here we go: first entry in Anaïs Nin November.

Via modfetish on the tumblr.

What I like best about myself is my audacity,
my courage. The ways I have found to be true to
myself without causing too much pain or damage.

Ibid.

What I hate so much is my vanity, my need to shine,
my need of applause and my sentimentality.

Ibid.

I would like to be harder. I cannot make a joke, make fun
of anyone, without feeling regrets.

I can’t relate to any of this because I’m perfect and I adore myself. What is this bitch on about? Excuse me now, I have dust in my eyes and I don’t want to talk about it.