Anxiety

Passages

Every passage tagged with this emotion in the Vela corpus. Search the body text, narrow by source or register, click through to a book’s profile to see how the passage sits with the rest of the work.

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• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  There were other problems in my relationship with Philip that I would have liked to present to Anaïs as she and I stood with our arms around each other’s waists, looking at the stars now twinkling above the hillside lights. But I realized it was all too complex, and my thoughts too jumbled, for her to deal with in the middle of a movie being shot about her. So I tried to keep my question simple: Should I give up the job offer and stay with Philip, who was unwilling to come with me? Or should I go so I could respect myself and likely lose him entirely? In the past, whenever I’d presented Anaïs with one of my emotional puzzles, she’d close her eyes as if about to plunge underwater. After several moments with her lids shut, she’d emerge with a brilliant insight that would solve the problem. It might be a revelation about one’s underlying motivations that, once recognized, brought clarity; or she might offer a metaphor that contained a nugget of wisdom. But Anaïs didn’t close her eyes and consider. She pivoted me, her arm around my waist, so that instead of looking out at the gleaming reservoir, we faced her brightly lit house. Together we watched a tableau through the glass doors as my friends socialized animatedly. Anaïs murmured in sympathy, “Can’t you ask the university for more time?” “I did. The chair said yes and offered me more money because he thought I was being a tough negotiator.” Her half laugh came from low in her throat, but she tried to be encouraging. “The Kinsey Institute is there, you know.” I snapped, “That has nothing to do with what I’d be doing there! I’m not a sexologist.” Immediately, I regretted my tone. “Of course not.” She sighed. “I just thought because you did that fascinating research with the women in your tent …” “I have to get those tapes back.” “I told you, I’ll return them!” Retreating in the face of her displeasure, I tried to pull her attention back to my problem. “Renate says whatever choice I make will be the right one, but I know whatever choice I make will be the wrong one.” She turned to me, her aquamarine eyes holding mine. “The problem isn’t your ambivalence, Tristine. It’s that you freeze instead of flowing forward.” She raised her right arm like a ballerina and let it glide sideways, suggesting a smoothly flowing river. “But how do I flow forward when I have to choose one path and I can’t?” I could hear panic in my voice. She offered an enigmatic smile. “I followed both paths until the way became clear.” She had managed to flow forward on two paths—to live in two places at once, to be the wife of two men at once—for seventeen years. But I couldn’t do that. Come January, I either went to Indiana by myself or stayed in Los Angeles with Philip.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Most of us have little experience to help guide us to this awareness. We are used to living in a very disconnected wa y, a way that hasn’t embraced our felt sense. If you are one of these people, contacting the felt sense is probably going to be unfamiliar. Don’t be discouraged. It’s difficult at first but hang in there; it will come. Western culture does not teach us to experience ourselves in this way. We are taught to read, write, calculate, etc., but rarely do we come across a school that teaches anything about the felt sense. It never gets mentioned at home, on the street, or anywhere else, for that matter. Most people use this sense every day, but very few of us consciously acknowledge it, and even fewer cultivate it. It is important to remember that the felt sense is a wonderful and very natural human capacity. Those of us who are traumatized should be aware that learning to work with the felt sense may be challenging. Part of the dynamic of trauma is that it cuts us off from our internal experience as a way of protecting our organisms from sensations and emotions that could be overwhelming. It may take you a while to trust enough to allow a little internal experience to come through. Be patient and keep reminding yourself that you don’t need to experience everything now. This hero’s journey proceeds one tiny step at a time. Using the Felt Sense to Listen to the Organism We want to begin to tap into our instinctual voices. The first step is learning to use the felt sense to listen to that voice. The most helpful attribute in this journey is gentleness. Contacting the instinctual self is powerful stuff. Never try to force it. Take it easy, take it slow. If you feel overwhelmed at any time, you may have overdone it. The next time you come to that curve, slow down. This is definitely one time that you will get there faster by going slower. Sometimes, the felt sense appears slowly; other times you are hit by a flash of understanding and the whole thing becomes clear to you in an instant. The best approach is to maintain an open and curious attitude. Don’t try to interpret, analyze, or explain what is happening; just experience and note it. It is also unnecessary to dredge up memories, emotions, insights, or anything else, for that matter.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Twenty years after the traumatizing event, the subtle and hidden effects emerged. Nancy was in a crowded room taking the Graduate Records Examination when she went into a severe panic attack. Later, she developed agoraphobia (fear of leaving her house alone). The experience was so extreme and seemingly irrational that she knew she must seek help. After the breakthrough that came in our initial visit, Nancy left my officer feeling, in her words, “like she had herself again.” Although we continued working together for a few more sessions, where she gently trembled and shook, the anxiety attack she experienced that day was her last. She stopped taking medication to control her attacks and subsequently entered graduate school, where she completed her doctorate without relapse. At the time I met Nancy, I was studying animal predator-prey behaviors. I was intrigued by the similarity between Nancys paralysis when her panic attack began and what happened to the impala described in the last chapter. Most prey animals use immobility when attacked by a larger predator from which they can’t escape. I am quite certain that these studies strongly influenced the fortuitous vision of the imaginary tiger. For several years after that I worked to understand the significance of Nancy’s anxiety attack and her response to the image of the tiger. There were many detours and wrong turns along the way. I now know that it was not the dramatic emotional catharsis and reliving of her childhood tonsillectomy that was catalytic in her recovery, but the discharge of energy she experienced when she flowed out of her passive, frozen immobility response into an active, successful escape. The image of the tiger awoke her instinctual, responsive self. The other profound insight that I gleaned from Nancy’s experience was that the resources that enable a person to succeed in the face of a threat can be used for healing. This is true not just at the time of the experience, but even years after the event. I learned that it was unnecessary to dredge up old memories and relive their emotional pain to heal trauma. In fact, severe emotional pain can be re- traumatizing. What we need to do to be freed from our symptoms and fears is to arouse our deep physiological resources and consciously utilize them. If we remain ignorant of our power to change the course of our instinctual responses in a proactive rather than reactive way, we will continue being imprisoned and in pain. Bob Barklay minimized the traumatic impact of his experience by remaining engaged in the task of freeing himself and the other children from the underground vault. The focused energy he expended in doing so is the key to why he was less traumatized than the other children. He not only became a hero in the moment, but he also helped free his nervous system from being overburdened by undischarged energy and fear for years to come.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Traumatic Anxiety And no Grand Inquisitor has in readiness such terrible tortures as has anxiet y ... which never lets him escape, neither by diversion, not by noise, neither at work or at play, neither by day or by night. Soren Kierkegaard, Danish philosopher The aroused state that will not go away, the ongoing sense of danger, the ceaseless search for that danger, the inability to find it, dissociation, a feeling of helplessnes s — together, these elements form traumatic anxiety. When we fail to move through the immobility response, the resulting biological message is: “Your life is hanging in the balance.” This sense of impending death is intensified by the feelings of rage, terror, panic, and helplessness. All of these factors combine to produce a phenomenon known as traumatic anxiety. The word “fear” comes from the Old English term for danger, while “anxious” is derived rom the Greek root word meaning to “press tight” or strangle. The experience of traumatic anxiety is profound. It goes far beyond the experience we usually equate with anxiety. The elevated state of arousal, the symptoms, the fear of exiting or fully entering the immobility state, as well as a nagging awareness that something is very wrong, produce an almost- constant state of extreme anxiety. This anxiousness serves as the backdrop for all experience in the severely traumatized person’s life. Just as we are more aware of the water than the fish that swims in it, so may anxiety be more apparent to those around traumatized people than it is to them. Traumatic anxiety displays itself as nervousness, fretting and worrying, and in appearing to be “high-strung.” The sufferer frequently experiences panic, dread, and highly over-dramatized reactions to trivial events. These maladies are not permanent fixtures of the personality, but are indicative of a nervous system temporarily, though perpetually, overwhelmed. Psychosomatic Symptoms Traumatic symptoms not only affect our emotional and mental states, but our physical health as well. When no other cause for a physical malady can be found, stress and trauma are likely candidates. Trauma can make a person blind, mute, or deaf; it can cause paralysis in legs, arms, or both; it can bring about chronic neck and back pain, chronic fatigue syndrome, bronchitis, asthma, gastrointestinal problems, severe PMS, migraines, and a whole host of so- called psychosomatic conditions. Any physical system capable of binding the undischarged arousal caused by trauma is fair game. The trapped energy will use any aspect of our physiology available to it. Denial Many trauma sufferers live in a state of resignation regarding their symptoms, without ever attempting to find a way back to a more normal, healthy life.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “Perfect. Why don’t we meet here again on Thursday when you have the stationery and I’ll dictate the letter then.” “Don’t you have your own stationery?” “Of course, but this requires something else. But if you can’t get it …” She seemed terribly disappointed. I couldn’t risk being cut off because of her displeasure again. “I want to help you! I just need to understand,” I blurted. “I know I must have said or done the wrong thing at your apartment in New York. I really wanted to see you again and you said you were going to take me shopping and put me together with Jean-Jacques, and I still don’t know what I did wrong, but I’m afraid I’ll mess up again and somehow ruin your secret because I don’t know what it is.” “I’m so sorry, Tristine. You didn’t do anything wrong in New York. I was just afraid. When you said you wanted to see me in Los Angeles …” She sighed. “My life is so complicated between the coasts.” “Was it Rupert? Were you already having an affair with Rupert?” I couldn’t help myself now. “Renate told me he’s jealous and that’s why you said that Ian Hugo took us to Harlem instead of—” “That’s true.” She averted her eyes. “I want to be your apprentice.” I sat upright to look professional. “I’ll get the stationery. Whatever you want me to do. You can trust me, Anaïs. I want to help you!” My declaration captured her attention, and she contemplated me. She held my gaze for a long time, during which it seemed we had been staring into each other’s eyes since the beginning of time, connected in an ancient bond of women’s sympathy for one another. Her eyes dropped to her pale, veined hands clenched in her lap. “I’m afraid I will shock you, so I have to think how to explain. I don’t know where to begin.” She looked at me again, her face now distressed. “This is all so complicated. I don’t know how to trust you not to … Even I—” She stopped, helpless with anxiety. She turned her face away, and I saw her sad Pierrot clown face that I recalled from the limo ride to Harlem. I wanted desperately for her to confide in me, and my desire made me uncharacteristically expressive. “I think secrets are like big hairy apes.” I could see I’d gained her attention. “You have to spend all your time guarding them so they don’t get out.” “Yes! Because if the ape gets out,” she said, “it will be horribly destructive.” I touched her icy hand. “But if you share the secret with someone you can trust, you don’t have to guard it all alone.”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “Yes.” Anaïs gave Henry her glorious smile. “I forgot to congratulate you on your Supreme Court victory. Your work was recognized as literary. Thirty years after I recognized it.” Henry said, “You’ll be making a mistake, Anaïs, if you cut the sex from your diary. Get your book banned like mine, hmm, hmm. That’s what makes the books sell.” Anaïs rose to leave, and I stood, but Henry set his sights on Rupert. “What about you, Rupert? How are you gonna feel when you read about Anaïs in heat with me?” “That was a long time ago,” Rupert said pleasantly. “Before I met Anaïs.” “Good attitude, Rupert kid, very good. Hmm, hmm. Besides, what do you have to complain about? She married you. I asked her to marry me, did ya know that? She wouldn’t leave Hugo. She never could leave Hugo, doncha know?” “We really have to get going.” Anaïs swept up two of the signed releases and deposited them in her bag. Henry raised his voice. “But what about Hugo, Anaïs? He’s going to know you are a liar when he reads your diary. A liar! Are you going to ask him for a release? Are you finally going to ask him for a divorce?” Oh my God. Henry had said it! I looked at Rupert for his reaction. He must have been zoning out, or maybe he just dismissed whatever Henry said as claptrap, because his eyes remained on Anaïs, concerned only by how upset she appeared. I tried again to derail Henry. “After Tropic of Cancer, which of your novels do you think I should read?” I asked. He ignored me. “Are you going to ask Hugo for a divorce?” he called to Anaïs as she hurried to the door where Rupert was waiting. “Do you want me to talk to him about it?” “I’ll send you the edited pages, Henry,” she trilled as we all exited. “Liar! Liar!” he yelled after us. As soon as we were settled in the T-bird, Rupert screeched onto Ocampo Drive as if wanting to leave Henry Miller in the dust. Anaïs said, “It’s sad that Henry has gone senile. He was always so much older than me.” “He sure is a crazy old coot!” Rupert responded, darting left onto Sunset. I chimed in, “Anaïs, I don’t know how you can stand that man.” She put up a palm, silencing me. “I’m editing the diary and I can’t allow my present feelings about Henry to color how I portrayed him then.” Lowering her hand, she took Rupert’s free hand. “The problem with Henry is that he’s never outgrown his adolescent romanticism. Like with that Hoki girl; he only loves what he cannot have. The moment he gets it, he loses his desire and becomes impotent. He can only perform in the realm of fantasy.”

• From The Decameron (1353)

  But Angiulieri, who was as handsome a man as he was courteous, feeling that he was leading a poor sort of life in Siena on the meagre allowance he was given by his father, and hearing that the new papal ambassador in the March of Ancona was a certain cardinal who was very well disposed towards him, resolved to make his way there in the belief that by doing this he would better his lot. And having spoken to his father on the subject, he came to an arrangement with him whereby he would receive six months’ allowance in advance, so that he could purchase new clothes and a good horse, and go there looking reasonably respectable. No sooner did he begin to look round for someone to take with him as his servant than his plans reached the ears of Fortarrigo, who immediately called on Angiulieri and begged him with all the eloquence at his command to take him with him, saying that he would be willing to act as his servant, his valet, and his general factotum without requiring any other payment than his food and lodging. But Angiulieri refused his offer, not because he had the slightest doubt of his ability to perform these duties, but because Fortarrigo was an inveterate gambler and furthermore he occasionally got very drunk. Fortarrigo assured him that he would guard against both these weaknesses and swore repeatedly that he would keep his promise, to which he added such a torrent of entreaties that Angiulieri finally yielded and agreed to take him. So early one morning they set forth together, reaching Buonconvento4 in time for breakfast. Since it was a very warm day, after breakfast Angiulieri asked the innkeeper to prepare a bed for him, and with Fortarrigo’s assistance he got undressed and lay down to rest, telling Fortarrigo to call him at the hour of nones.5 As soon as Angiulieri was asleep, Fortarrigo went straight to the tavern, where after a few drinks he started to gamble with one or two other people there, and within a short space of time he had lost every penny he possessed, along with every stitch of clothing he was wearing. Being anxious to recoup his losses, he made his way back in nothing but his shirt to the room where Angiulieri was resting, and, perceiving that he was fast asleep, took all the money from his purse and returned to the gaming-table, where he lost Angiulieri’s money as well.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  I’d prevaricated because, even after months of internal debate, I was still unable to decide whether to accept the offer. On the one hand, it would mean I’d have to leave everything I loved in my life: Anaïs and Renate, living with Philip at the beach house, my sisterhood of women friends. On the other hand, I knew I should grab a three-year, guaranteed tenure-track job at a major university in a market where suddenly there were no jobs to be had. Those of us on the cusp of the Boomer bubble had run like lemmings when told there was a need for more college professors, but no one had figured out that by the time we’d gotten our PhDs, the bubble would have burst. My fellow grad students were hissing at my rare good fortune to have any offers, even if they all had been in less than desirable locations. After the filming, when my friends gathered around Anaïs, I slipped out alone to the backyard. Standing by the hedge where the hillside dropped, I could see house lights begin to twinkle on the slopes below. They spread like the Milky Way down to the lake’s shimmering surface. I felt Anaïs approach and slip her arm around my waist. “What’s wrong, Tristine?” I told her about my inability to decide whether to take the Indiana job. “Oh, I thought you had already decided to turn it down.” “No; I don’t want to leave you and I don’t want to leave Philip, but Indiana is letting me create my own Women’s Lit classes, and if I turn it down I’ll be selling out the Women’s Movement, and all the women before me who fought for my opportunity, and my students who see me as an example. So I changed my mind. Then I changed it again. Over and over. It’s making me crazy. Either way I choose, it feels like I’m cleaving off half of myself.” “Why doesn’t Philip come with you?” she asked. “I knew that would be your suggestion. I knew you’d say, ‘Find a creative solution,’ so I begged him to come with me, but he said there was no market for mod men’s fashion in Indiana.” In fact, Philip’s response had shocked me. Sweet, passive Philip had said, unequivocally, “No.” He wouldn’t move to Indiana; he wouldn’t leave his work. I knew we would not survive long-distance. And even if after three years I were lucky enough to find a job back in California (which had been Renate’s recommendation), I didn’t believe Philip would wait. I’d begged him, “Tell me not to go. Just tell me to stay with you.” “I can’t do that,” he’d said gently. He sat on the waterbed that rocked under his weight. He dropped his head, and his hands disappeared into his blond shag. “Why not?” I sniffled. “Because later you would blame me.” I probably would.

• From The Decameron (1353)

  Bruno and Buffalmacco and Nello were like to burst with laughter, hearing Calandrino's words; however, they contained themselves, but Doctor Simple-Simon[427] laughed so immoderately that you might have drawn every tooth in his head. Finally, Calandrino commending himself to the physician and praying him give him aid and counsel in this his strait, the latter said to him, 'Calandrino, I will not have thee lose heart; for, praised be God, we have taken the case so betimes that, in a few days and with a little trouble, I will deliver thee thereof; but it will cost thee some little expense.' 'Alack, doctor mine,' cried Calandrino, 'ay, for the love of God, do it! I have here two hundred crowns, wherewith I was minded to buy me an estate; take them all, if need be, so I be not brought to bed; for I know not how I should do, seeing I hear women make such a terrible outcry, whereas they are about to bear child, for all they have ample commodity therefor, that methinketh, if I had that pain to suffer, I should die ere I came to the bringing forth.' Quoth the doctor, 'Have no fear of that; I will let make thee a certain ptisan of distilled waters, very good and pleasant to drink, which will in three mornings' time carry off everything and leave thee sounder than a fish; but look thou be more discreet for the future and suffer not thyself fall again into these follies. Now for this water it behoveth us have three pairs of fine fat capons, and for other things that are required thereanent, do thou give one of these (thy comrades) five silver crowns, so he may buy them, and let carry everything to my shop; and to-morrow, in God's name, I will send thee the distilled water aforesaid, whereof thou shalt proceed to drink a good beakerful at a time.' 'Doctor mine,' replied Calandrino, 'I put myself in your hands'; and giving Bruno five crowns and money for three pairs of capons, he besought him to oblige him by taking the pains to buy these things. [Footnote 427: _Scimmione_ (lit. ape), a contemptuous distortion of _Simone_.]

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  My work leads me to believe that many of these people have traumatic histories which at least contribute to their symptoms. Depression and anxiety often have traumatic antecedents, as does mental illness. A study conducted by Bessel van der Kolk [4] , a respected researcher in the field of trauma, has shown that patients at a large mental institution frequently had symptoms indicative of trauma. Many of these symptoms were overlooked at the time because no one recognized their significance. Today, most people are aware of the fact that sexual, physical, and emotional abuse, as well as exposure to violence or danger, can profoundly alter a person’s life. What most people don’t know is that many seemingly benign situations can be traumatic. The consequences of trauma can be widespread and hidden. Over the course of my career I have found an extraordinary range of symptom s — behavioral and psychosomatic problems, lack of vitality, etc . — related not only to the traumatic events mentioned above, but also to quite ordinary events. Common occurrences can produce traumatic after effects that are just as debilitating as those experienced by veterans of combat or survivors of childhood abuse. Traumatic effects are not always apparent immediately following the incidents that caused them. Symptoms can remain dormant, accumulating over years or even decades. Then, during a stressful period, or as the result of another incident, they can show up without warning. There may also be no indication of the original cause. Thus, a seemingly minor event can give rise to a sudden breakdown, similar to one that might be caused by a single catastrophic event. What We Don’t Know Can Hurt Us When it comes to trauma, what we don’t know can hurt us. Not knowing we are traumatized doesn’t prevent us from having problems that are caused by it. However, with the incredible maze of misinformation and myth that exists about trauma and its treatment, the denial is understandable. It is difficult enough to deal solely with the symptoms of trauma without the added anxiety of not knowing why we are experiencing them or whether they will ever cease. Anxiety can crop up for a variety of reasons, including a deep pain that comes when your spouse, friends, and relatives unite in the conviction that its time for you to get on with your life. They want you to act normally because they believe you should have learned to live with your symptoms by now.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Yet with all she’d revealed to me, I was still more confused about the timing of her divorce than ever. It appeared that she and Rupert had kept up their affair for sixteen years and then she’d finally divorced Hugo and married Rupert. Or could she and Hugo have already been divorced when I met them in 1962? Renate had said that Anaïs and Hugo pretended not to be married when he was Ian Hugo; could Anaïs have just been pretending to be married still to Hugo Guiler when I met her? [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] Writing the pretend invitation letter for Anaïs was torture: typing and re-typing it, checking spellings in the dictionary, laboring the grammar. Knowing it would be read by English department chairs, any error could give it away as a fake—and it would be my fault. Anaïs and I met as arranged a week later outside the old Beaux Arts central library by the mosaics of sphinxes and snakes. I felt very continental when we rushed to greet each other on the elevated landing, exchanging pecks on both cheeks. We claimed a cement bench, and I presented to her the perfectly typed letter. She read through it quickly. Afterwards she was pensive. What had I done wrong? “What are these two dots?” she finally said, pointing to the greeting, Dear Anaïs Nin: “You mean the umlaut over the i in your name? I found a typewriter that had that key in the library.” “No, after my name.” She pointed with a French-tipped nail. “The colon?” “Oui,” she said impatiently. “It’s a business letter. Isn’t it?” She waved her hand. “I just use a comma.” It was my first inkling of the deficits in her education due to dropping out of high school and receiving no training other than in flamenco dancing. I was troubled by her ignorance of proper punctuation and alarmed when she pronounced, “Renate is right. The letter should actually be for a series of lectures.” “What does Renate have to do with it?” “The letter is partly her idea. She thinks it would be better if you invited me for a series of lectures covering two years.” Ugh. I would have to re-type the whole thing. Anaïs could read my face, even though I wasn’t aware anything showed on it. “What’s wrong, Tristine?” “I may not have enough stationery to get the typing correct again.” “Oh, we don’t have time for that anyway.” She took a black and gold Montblanc fountain pen from her large leather purse, uncapped it, and handed it to me. “You haven’t signed your name.” I noticed the very fine point on her fountain pen. “I might damage your pen,” I said. “I have my own.” “Yes, that would be better.”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Remaining calm, she said, “Hugo broke his leg, and I’m caring for him.” She promised to call Rupert back. He hung up in a huff. She made up a story for Hugo that the caller was a crazy stalker who showed up at her book signings. She said that Dr. Bogner had told her not to contradict the stalker’s fantasies or he could become dangerous. Three days later, she found out that Rupert would be arriving in New York the following morning to be with her. Her mind went into overdrive. Her first instinct was to keep her husbands as far from each other in the city as possible. God forbid that they run into each other. Then she realized that unless she introduced them, neither husband could recognize the other, and that, actually, it would be easier for her to have them only blocks apart. That way, in an emergency, she could get from one to the other in minutes. So she booked Rupert a room at the Washington Square Hotel, directly across the park from her apartment with Hugo. Washington Square Arch in the middle of the park would be the demarcation between Hugo’s kingdom and Rupert’s domain. As soon as she had intercepted Rupert and enticed him to the hotel, she told him she had to leave for her Cue editing job. Taking a taxi, she arrived within minutes at the elevator to her fourteenth-floor apartment. When she didn’t find Hugo in his hospital bed, she was rattled, until she saw him hobbling around on crutches with Millie’s help. “Oh, Millie, I am so glad you are back.” Anaïs threw her arms around the Haitian woman’s neck while Millie kept her grip on Hugo. Anaïs stepped in front of Hugo, so he didn’t have to twist to see her. “Darling, I have big news!” Both Hugo and Millie looked at her expectantly. “Cue has given me an assignment to oversee a new French edition! The only thing is, I’ll have to work day and night until we go to print.” Hugo pulled away from Millie’s support and stepped with his crutches toward the bed. “That’s enough, Millie. Let me have a word with my wife, if you would,” he said, using the paternalistic tone that got on Anaïs’s nerves. She anticipated his speech on how he was the breadwinner in the family, and she was his precious helper, and presently he needed her help. Instead he asked, “Have you talked to them about salary?” After reprimanding her for not using his help in the negotiations, he urged her to take the job. Surprised, she asked him why. “Nothing, just things are just a little slow with my investments right now.”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “No, not after you’ve come all this way.” She sighed. “I didn’t want you to see me looking like this.” She touched spindly fingers to her pink turban. “You are as beautiful to me now as the day you were my bride,” he said. I interrupted, “I’ll guard the door so you two can have some privacy.” I hoped Anaïs would understand that I’d be on the lookout for Rupert. She said, “Hugo, you remember Tristine.” I tried to sound welcoming—“It’s nice to see you”—but added, amazed at the ease of my invention, “The doctor said that Anaïs is not to have long visits.” “Right,” he said distractedly, clearly eager for me to leave. As he watched me back out the door, behind him Anaïs mouthed, Stop Rupert! [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] I sat on a chair just outside Anaïs’s door trying to quiet the blasting alarms in my head. Anaïs had kept Hugo and Rupert apart for thirty years, and any minute now they were going to converge when she was too weak to deal with it. The only hope was to get Hugo to leave before Rupert arrived. As if I could delay Rupert by imagining it, I saw him sitting in gridlock on Sunset Boulevard and driving in circles, unable to find a parking place. When I checked my watch for the tenth time, Hugo had been in the room with Anaïs for over fifteen minutes. I decided I should go in to interrupt them, but just then I heard fast footsteps approaching. I looked up to see Rupert sprinting down the industrial green corridor! He looked flushed. I ran up to him. “You’re early.” “We just drank champagne at the meeting. We don’t have to look for donors because Joan Palevsky is writing a check for the whole $250,000 for Anaïs’s diaries!” He pushed past me. “I have to tell Anaïs.” I stepped in front of him. “You have to wait. She’s getting a procedure.” “I’m going in!” Stubborn as always. As he pushed past, he issued an order: “You can leave now.” “But she asked me to say goodbye before—” “I’m telling you to leave!” I was so upset at his rudeness that I fled down the hospital corridor. CHAPTER 32 Silver Lake, California, 1976–77 TRISTINE AS I DROVE TO VISIT Anaïs, now home after two weeks in the hospital, I dreaded learning what had happened when Rupert discovered Hugo at her bedside. Just when she and I had come so close! I’d run like a rabbit, frightened by Rupert’s bark instead of helping her. She’d been relying on me to save the day and in the end I’d failed her. She answered the door in an empress muumuu with a smock tied over it, looking much better, her color back. She apologized that she had to sort through some files while we visited. “I’m organizing my papers for UCLA.” I fetched a chair from the kitchen and set it outside her office door.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  “That’s true.” Wistfully, she lowered her delicate chin. Then she looked up and set her beryl eyes on me. “Actually, that is where the story you need to understand begins: in 1947, probably before you were born.” I quickly calculated. “No, I was born. I was three years old.” She took a deep breath, touched my hand lightly, and began the story of her search for passion. She may not have been able to create a plot in her novels, but in person, with her soft, lilting voice, she was as captivating as Scheherazade, dropping one veil, only to entice with another. CHAPTER 6 Greenwich Village, New York, 1947 ANAÏS AT FORTY-FOUR, SHE WAS MAD for sex and wild with anxiety. Hugo had given her money to hire someone to set the type for Gemor Press, and she’d hired Gonzolo Mores, one of her impoverished Paris lovers who had followed her to the US. For a time, she was having sex with Gonzolo in the Village studio she kept for him, and with Henry Miller, who had also followed her to New York, and with a half dozen other men, sometimes five different men in a day—younger ones, older ones, soldiers and film directors, men she met at parties, some straight, some not. She paused only when bedridden with bouts of exhaustion. Her only anchor in this tumultuous period was the tangible work of handprinting her novels. Gonzolo, after a burst of energy, had fallen back on his old habit of drinking wine before noon, and so Anaïs had taken over his task of positioning the type on the old clamshell press. One freezing winter night, she was working alone in the East Village studio where the hand press was housed. Wrapped in her winter coat with a dirty printer’s smock covering it, she locked in letters of Bernhard Gothic Light. Her fingers were blackened from inking the plate. Her back ached from working the pedal. Yet she loved this work for the respite it gave from her abiding restlessness. She had come to the point where she felt she would have to leave both Hugo and the United States. She had not been able to flower as a woman or as a writer in New York as she had in Paris. She was dissipating her time and her talent. Her relationship with Hugo had become a formality of duty and appearance, and she wanted out of its imprisonment. Yet she did not know how she could get Hugo to live without her; nor, when she was honest with herself, how she would get by without him, financially or emotionally.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  The eternal ingénue—that’s what Anaïs was and what I wanted to be: forever young and light and carefree. I made a note of the Latin term but later, when I looked it up at Doheny Library, I found that the archetype of the woman who never ages, never loses her sexuality, and never becomes a mother had a dark side too—of being unable to stick to anything, of always being afraid of being trapped, of never growing up. Anaïs shifted her position on the stacked pillows. “I’ve been meaning to ask, have you seen your godmother?” “I stayed with Lenore last Easter break. We went to her show at the American Craft Museum.” “You cannot tell Lenore that you saw me in LA.” “Okay,” I said, “But I don’t see what harm.” “That’s just the point. You don’t know what harm!” “Then tell me. Tell me the rest of the story about you and Rupert. Did he try to find someone else to have children with?” My question appeared to pierce her like a blade. “I suppose that’s a natural question. He was only twenty-eight then.” “But he was in love with you,” I said. “Not yet.” She gave a wry smile. CHAPTER 8 Los Angeles, California, 1947 ANAÏS UPON THEIR ARRIVAL IN LOS Angeles, Rupert insisted they first go to the beach in Santa Monica. Anaïs sat on the shore shivering as he played like a puppy in the surf. Charging out of the water, his embrace wetting her clothes, he whooped, “I could take you right here.” Instead he took her with rough, impersonal sex in a rundown Hollywood motel room, and she had perhaps the best orgasm of her life. Putting on his clothes afterwards, he announced, “I have to go back to my mother’s tonight. They’re waiting for me.” “I can’t stay alone in this dump!” Panic pressed against her esophagus. “You’ll be safe. Lock the door.” “You expect me to believe that a twenty-eight-year-old man has to sleep at his mummy’s house? It’s the girlfriend, isn’t it?” He stepped back as though from a frothing animal. “I’ll see you in the morning.” As the motel door slammed behind him, she knew her uncontrolled anxiety had been ruinous. She ran after him, through the motel courtyard and onto the street, still in her bathrobe. “Rupert, please. Don’t leave me here!” He didn’t look back as he slid into Cleo and took off. Anaïs chased the car as it sped down the hill. Slipping on the steep, cracked pavement, she fell and caught herself, scraping her hand. Out of breath, she sat on the road as the last of twilight dimmed and watched as Cleo turned at the corner, huffing dark smoke from the exhaust pipe, and disappeared out of sight.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Anaïs smiled with approval as I pulled out a Bic ballpoint. I looked for something to write on. She offered her purse, but it was too soft. I dug out the Penguin orange-and-white paperback of Lady Chatterley’s Lover that I’d borrowed from the library to reread, set the letter on top of it, and signed my name. I was eager to have that letter out of my sight. I replaced the plastic cap on the Bic. “Oh, don’t put it away yet,” she said. “Just write in ‘and a series of lectures over a two-year period.’” I looked at her askance. She insisted with a note of sarcasm, “You know, use your little editor’s arrow.” She took the signed letter from me and studied it again. “Right here.” She pointed. “Are you sure?” I asked. “Why not?” “The English department would never send out a revised letter without it being retyped.” “But it’s not coming from them. It’s coming from you, on behalf of the English department. It says, right here.” She pointed to the line that made me the most uncomfortable: On behalf of the English department at the University of Southern California, I am inviting Anaïs Nin … I said, “If the letter doesn’t look right, it won’t impress the East Coast colleges …” “Fine, but it has to go out today.” “Why?” “So it will get there before I arrive. Why are you asking so many questions? Just write it in. I brought a stamp.” I wrote in as small a hand as I could manage, and as I was writing, she was dictating yet another phrase to add, pointing with her white tipped nail. “Here add, ‘to include screenings of Ian Hugo’s films.’” Before I could object, she said, “Just insert it!” When I finished, she seized the letter and envelope, sealed the flap, affixed the stamp she’d brought, and took my arm, guiding me as a gentleman would. “I’m taking you to lunch to thank you for this little service,” she chirped, starting down the flight of steps. “We can look for a mailbox as we walk.” Arm in arm, we made our way down Fifth Street to Olive as unkempt people pushed by us. At the corner of Pershing Square she spied a mailbox into which she dropped the letter. After that we wandered up and down inclines and through narrow, seedy streets, as she repeated, “I know we’re in the right neighborhood, we just have to keep walking.” She directed us to an alley with uneven paving and piles of trash. “We’ll just cut through here, and it will show up.” But we emerged at a busy intersection I was sure we’d crossed before. She darted across the boulevard full of traffic. I hesitated as the light turned yellow, but then chased after her, cars honking at me before I reached the other side. My anxiety skyrocketed. I was lost and following her, and she didn’t know where she was going.

• From Waking the Tiger: Healing Trauma (1997)

  Like hyperarousal and constriction, helplessness is an overt reflection of the physiological processes happening in the body. When our nervous systems shift into an aroused state in response to danger, and we cannot defend ourselves or flee, the next strategy the nervous system employs is immobilization. Nearly every creature that lives has this primitive response wired into its repertoire of defensive strategies. We will return again and again to this intriguing response in the chapters that follow. It plays a leading role in both the development and transformation of trauma. And Then There Was Trauma Hyperarousal, constriction, helplessness, and dissociation are all normal responses to threat. As such, they do not always end up as traumatic symptoms. Only when they are habitual and chronic do symptoms develop. As these stress reactions remain in place, they form the groundwork and fuel for the development of subsequent symptoms. Within months, these symptoms at the core of the traumatic reaction will begin to incorporate mental and psychological characteristics into their dynamics until eventually they reach into every corner of the trauma sufferer’s life. In short, with trauma, the stakes are high. Ideally, the exercises in this chapter combined with other experiences you have had will help you identify how these reactions feel. As they become chronic, hyperarousal, constriction, helplessness, and dissociation together produce an anxiety so intense it can become unbearable. Eventually, the symptoms can coalesce into traumatic anxiety, a state that pervades the trauma sufferer’s every waking (and sleeping) moment. The symptoms that comprise the core of the traumatic reaction are the surest way to know that trauma has occurre d- if you can recognize how they feel. As the constellation of symptoms grows increasingly complex, some combination of these four components of the core of the traumatic reaction will always be present. When you can recognize them, these components will help you distinguish between symptoms that are due to trauma and those that are not. 11. Symptoms of Trauma When our nervous systems prepare us to meet danger, they shift into highly energized states. If we can discharge this energy while actively and effectively defending against threat (or shortly after the threatening event), the nervous system will move back toward a normal level of functioning. Our felt sense will feel complete, self-satisfied, and heroic. If the threat has not been dealt with successfully, the energy stays in our bodies. We have now created a self-perpetuating dilemma. On a physiological level, our bodies and minds work in tandem as one integrated system. We know that we are in danger when we perceive an external threat and our nervous system becomes highly aroused.

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Anaïs placed a folded hand under her delicate chin. “I’m thinking of telling Hugo that the ranch owner was so annoyed at people calling to leave messages for guests that she had the phone disconnected, and that the phone company assigned the number to the men who answered.” “Excellent plan,” Renate said. “And with Tristine and the lecture series, you are now covered for the next two years.” So that was why Anaïs had made me change the invitation letter to a series of lectures! She could no longer tell Hugo that she was writing at the California rest ranch, but she could say repeatedly that she was coming to give the pre-arranged lectures at USC and staying with me. As this last piece fell into place, the chill I’d felt was encompassed by blackness, as if I were inside the freezer and someone had closed the door. Did they expect me to lie to Hugo for the next two years? I would have to memorize every detail of what Anaïs had told him. Renate had been able to pull off their ruse for seven years, but eventually even she had screwed up. Anaïs asked me, concerned, “Do you think you can do this?” “Yes,” I said with a conviction I didn’t feel. I didn’t have sufficient experience with lying. I was unqualified for this assignment, but now it was too late to tell Anaïs. “So, everything is settled.” Renate rose, indicating it was time for us to leave. But when Anaïs and I stood, Renate commanded, “We must make an oath with Tristine.” Alarmed, I looked to Anaïs. She simply shrugged and nodded with a resigned smile that I should humor Renate. “Put your hand over mine,” Renate instructed me. She extended her elevated right hand. I placed mine over hers. Anaïs placed her right hand over mine. Her hand was soft and cold. Renate stacked her left hand over Anaïs’s, and we followed suit until our six hands were piled like pancakes. Renate began, “Tristine swears not to repeat what she has learned or may learn about Anaïs’s life. She may discuss it only with Anaïs or Renate.” I felt a frisson of excitement. “Say ‘I swear,’” Renate urged, and I did. Renate continued, “We vow to keep Anaïs’s secrets, revealed now or in the future, under pain of personal disaster. The person who betrays this oath, unless released by Anaïs, shall be visited with betrayals increased in magnitude to the tenth degree. Repeat after me: ‘This I swear in the name of Archangel Raphael to the East, Uriel to the North, Gabriel to the West and Michael to the South. So be it. Amen.’” We repeated Renate’s words, but Anaïs’s voice was so faint, I heard only my own. The hocus pocus reminded me of the silly solemnity of my ADPi sorority initiation, and I was tempted to giggle—but the chill from Anaïs’s hand penetrated mine, and I could tell that Renate was completely serious. CHAPTER 15

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  Los Angeles, California, 1964 TRISTINE HUGO PHONED ME THREE DAYS later. “Hello, Tristine.” I wasn’t ready! I went into actress mode. I told myself this was improvisation. The givens were that I was a sophisticated young woman who was friends with Anaïs Nin, such good friends that she stayed in my apartment when she was in LA. Ready, set, go. Perhaps with too much gusto, I responded, “Hugo! It’s been a long time. It’s great to hear from you.” “Thank you, Tristine. And thank you for helping Anaïs when she’s there.” “Oh, no problem. Do you have a message for her?” “No, is she staying there now?” “She’s not here at the moment, but I can get her a message.” “Well, no. I’ll tell you why I’m calling. I hope you won’t mind if I ask you some personal questions.” Uh-oh. I couldn’t figure out whether to say yes, he could, or no, he couldn’t. He must have gotten tired of waiting for me to reply because he went on. “Anaïs told me that you’ve moved universities. She gave me your new address at USC.” Moved universities? I hadn’t moved. I wasn’t sure how to respond. “Yes.” “Hmm. I’ve heard that USC has a good football team.” “That’s what everyone says. I don’t—” “Actually, that’s not what I wanted to ask you about.” Oh god, I’m not going to be able to do this! “I have a friend whose son was going to enroll there,” Hugo continued. “My friend says that the surrounding neighborhood is quite dangerous. A lot like Harlem before the riots this summer.” “But the campus is safe.” “How many blocks would you say your apartment is from campus?” “Oh, it’s only a few blocks from campus,” I fudged. Twelve blocks could still be a few. “And my building is safe.” I wished. “I never worried when Anaïs was staying at your apartment near UCLA. Westwood is a good neighborhood. But that rich-kids school you’re at now is in the ghetto. Go figure.” I was trying to figure. Hugo thought Anaïs had stayed with me before when I was at UCLA? But I’d never gone to UCLA or lived in Westwood. I just held my tongue while Hugo continued to admonish me to be careful on my “new” campus. Finally, given my silence, he stopped and asked, “So what are you majoring in?” “English lit.” “Well, why would an undergraduate transfer across town for that?” I hadn’t transferred, but he certainly thought I had. Okay, I prompted myself, go with what the other actor gives you. Preserve the illusion of reality: Why would an undergraduate transfer colleges? For a great professor! But USC didn’t have any. Well, there was one great art history professor who was gay, but they’d fired him. Think! Think! Got it! “I’m applying to UCLA for grad school, and they prefer to take undergraduates from colleges other than UCLA. So I had to leave to be able to come back.”

• From Apprenticed to Venus: My Secret Life with Anaïs Nin (2017)

  [image file=image_rsrc3R3.jpg] “How did Hugo see the letter?” I heard how out of control my voice must have sounded to Renate through the receiver. Anaïs was in New York and hadn’t given me her new phone number there, so I’d phoned Renate as soon as I got back to my apartment. “You mean the letter you mailed to Anaïs? How do you know Hugo saw the letter?” I should have known Renate would answer my question with one of her own. I recounted what had just happened in Dr. Inch’s office. I was hyperventilating by the time Renate said gravely, “This is very serious. Let me think about it. Perhaps there’s a solution to protect you at that uptight university.” I didn’t think there was anything Renate or Anaïs could do about the destruction of my college career; they were so peripheral to that world. “Anaïs can’t show that letter now to any eastern colleges!” I warned. “She won’t. I’ll talk to her. Here’s what I want you to do. When you next see Dr. Inch, find out exactly what he told Hugo. Then be prepared for a meeting at my house with Anaïs the moment she gets back from New York. Don’t worry.” How could I not worry? Questions flew around in my mind like moths, eating holes in my brain. What would I do with my life if I couldn’t become a college professor? I didn’t want to end up a restaurant hostess like Renate; I’d held enough waitressing jobs to know what a dead end that was. Why had I thrown away everything I’d worked for just to please Anaïs Nin? Dr. Inch had said Hugo called Anaïs his wife. Was my suspicion right that they pretended they were married now, the way they’d pretended they were not married when Hugo was Ian Hugo? These were not honest people! And what was the truth about the letter, anyway? Dr. Inch had said that even if it really were from the USC English department, it wouldn’t impress eastern colleges, so what was the real reason Anaïs had me write and send it? What kind of game had she gotten me mixed up in? The questions flew around madly and collided with one another for a week. Another week went by, and I didn’t hear from Renate, Anaïs, or Dr. Inch. I made myself focus on my classwork, hoping that my good grades would bring me leniency when the university’s discipline came down on my head. Just before Thanksgiving break, I got a call to come back to Dr. Inch’s office. As I pedaled my bike onto the campus, I imagined begging Dr. Inch to let my punishment be a public flogging before the Tommy Trojan statue, rather than expulsion, so my humiliation would be over all at once.