Anais Nin

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Anais Nin - Diarist to the Detail

Anais Nin (1903-1977) is a goddess to me. A goddess of Life as Art. As she journaled her life, she lived it. And she lived it, conscious of how she would write about it that night.

Through her journals, which she kept right up to the end; through her novels, which have the capacity to change the lives of their readers; Anais Nin through her provocative essays; through her life, which she treated as a precious poem; through her relationships, which she explored like a spelunker, unafraid to crawl into dark, unknown caverns:

She taught us to look at our lives from the distance of a writer - and using that approach, she taught us to observe our own storylines rather than get lost in them.

Nin's novels take us to secret rooms…

"Lillian turned her face away from him, and listened to the jazz.

"Jazz was the music of the body. The breath came through aluminum and copper tubes, it was the body’s breath, and the strings’ wails and moans were echoes of the body’s music. It was the body’s vibrations which rippled from the fingers. And the mystery of the withheld theme known to the musicians alone was like the mystery of our secret life. We give to others only peripheral improvisations. The plots and themes of the music, like the plots and themes of our life, never alchemized into words, existed only in a state of music, stirring or numbing, exalting or despairing, but never named."
...from Seduction of the Minotaur by Anais Nin

How was she able to become so intimate with her life, while at the same time exploring each detail as if she were writing a chapter of a novel? Perhaps that was her genius.

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Her diaries take us backstage, behind the scenes…

"Henry [Miller] disturbs the wisdom I seek to maintain, my passion for truth (it is true that June is beautiful and worthy of passion). He mistrusts suavity, prefers explosiveness. The smile I always carry he challenges; he tears it away like a holiday mask.

"He shatters the reserve with which I handle my explosiveness so as not to hurt others. He exposes the withdrawn Anais who lives several fathoms deep. He likes to churn the ground. His role is to keep everything moving, for out of chaos comes richness, out of upheavals new seeds.

"The same thing which makes Henry indestructible is what makes me indestructible. The core of us is an artist, a writer. And it is in our work, by our work, that we reassemble the fragments, re-create wholeness."

...from The Diary of Anais Nin Volume One 1931-1934, p.68-69

And Henry and June. Both the book and the movie were fascinating and compelling. Like watching our shadow-selves:

"It was room number thirty-five, from which I might have awakened the next morning a whore, or a madwoman, or what is worse, perhaps, altogether unchanged."

...from Henry & June

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Read an interview with Chantal: Transitioning from
a Corporate Career to the Creative Life Anais Nin