Anaïs Nin

ladders_to_fire @ 2007-03-21T09:10:00

2007-03-21T15:10:41Z

I think I died somewhere back there and forgot to notice.

You did too.

ladders_to_fire @ 2007-02-26T00:01:00

2007-02-26T21:49:25Z

Jealousy makes so little sense, especially when it's so noisy. What a waste of time.

(Nietzsche, you're not allowed to talk about this entry or reply in any way. Just keep it to yourself.)

Muses and lovers are quite different things. I don't know why people insist that a muse is somehow more intimate or worshipful.

Being a muse isn't all it's cracked up to be either.

Friends-Locked

2006-12-20T23:31:48Z

I wake to sleep again. If I held a job they would have fired me by now. I can't focus on anything. I sleep and sleep. I have mononucleosis, I swear to God I do, but I know that really I don't.

I just don't want to face it right now.

The bed is wide and white like a snowy field. I wash the sheets three times a week. There is nothing else to do.

I think of him and I have no idea who he is. Not really. But I want him. God, I want him.

Email.

2006-11-12T12:45:30Z

Henry:

He owns me. A piece of me, some coding inside me, responds to him and whatever beacon call he sends out. His love is not the kind that any daughter wishes for, but somehow I always think he may have reformed.

Let's not talk about him any more. He led me to utter stupidity the other night among Egyptian Ratscrew and tequila and torn foil wrappers, and now I have an apology to make. We do know how I hate apologies.

Henry, you cannot be serious-- coming here? To sunny Massachusetts, home of the tsunami snowdrift and the tiny town that holds my heart? I find I'm falling in love with it. Hard and fast like a mudslide.

Come to see me. Late at night, among the early Christmas lights and first snows; early in the morning, and bring muffins; with the afternoon gleaming at your back; see me, Henry.

It makes me ache to think of you in an airport, surrounded by a bustle of strangers, when you could be here and calm with me. It snowed for the first time tonight, and it will stick. Bring your footprints to my door.

The stairs are on the side of the building. Mine is the only door. There is no sunny plaza to meet you in, no gelato, no outdoor markets; no free days wandering the streets of Paris with a grocery list in one hand and your shirt-tail in the other.

Here I may be more lost than ever, but you always find me. Me and my cereal in the cupboards. I never eat it anyhow; you may as well come and gorge yourself, you greedy bastard.

But I get all your marshmallows.

-Anais

P.S. Balkan Falcon Memorial Laundromat, Main Street, the east side. Upstairs.

ladders_to_fire @ 2006-11-09T05:16:00

2006-11-11T12:35:18Z

Henry:

He sent me a letter again.

I have read it a thousand times over until the folds are coming apart and it is soft as cloth, but I admit I can find nothing in it. He is not asking for money, or to see me. He wrote me a letter and in it he wrote Anais, I miss you, my little girl. When I read it, I laughed.

Henry, how cruel am I, how cruel can I be? He is my father, he loves me, he longs to be with me. Yet he like so many others only sees one thing within me. It makes perfect sense, does it not, that he created me and that he can therefore bind me and own me. I have seen it happen, Henry, the way he bound my mother and the way she fell down and scraped her hands and knees when he left.

I won't be owned that way. Not by blood or by demand. I will not let that darkness overtake me. I have clarity of mind on my side, I have knowledge. I have you. I do not love my father.

Remember, Henry. The one who loves is the one who is dominated.

I will not be dominated this time. I refuse to accept that in being a woman, it is my lot to long for my father and whisper anxiously after him in the still, cold evenings.

I wish you were here to say my name in that particular way that you do. No one here says it correctly, but you never fail me. And to tell me that old military coat is dreadful and that I should stop taking it in and trying to make it feminine; the last time we kissed your mouth tasted of mulled wine. Was it really last Christmastime?

Write soon. Your letters are nothing like your hand on my brow, but they will do for now. In a pinch, they will do.

-Anais

P.S. I got sick drunk and slept with a fellow I wish I'd slept with sober. Oh, Henry, I've done very badly here-- but it overwhelms me sometimes, how sad this place is, how truly woebegone, and I must do something or drown. There, you've been my priest and I'll do my penance next time I see you. Perhaps we can find a real confessional this time.

-A

ladders_to_fire @ 2006-10-15T17:30:00

2006-10-15T23:42:54Z

So.

We're trying the school thing again.

Mother never tells me what to do; it's as simple as a brochure left open on the kitchen table. She knows just how to get to me, with peculiar little buildings and a school with a funny name... and so there go my dreams of sailing the coast of Greece this spring in a little Chinese junk. It's just that sometimes, structured learning appeals to me, and she can sense when those times present themselves; my childlike dreams of firm pink erasers and pencil shavings and crisp autumn days.

I've taken a room (a nicely-sized room for what I'm paying, I suppose it's due to the size of the town) over a memorial laundromat. Yes, a memorial laundromat. I think when I die, I should rather have my name memorialized over a Texaco station or something equally ironic.

We shall see how Eupheme and I get along. Icaria and I are already friends and take long companionable walks together, though I haven't yet found its dance studio.

Tell me there is a dance studio or I may very well turn right around and go back home to Paris.