For all the mothers….

I’ve been in love with Anais Nin since I picked up her first diary. She always meant for it to be called a journal and regretted that it somehow got mixed up in the translation from French to English. A diary is a list of activities, a journal is a recounting of the inner workings of the soul. I started keeping a diary in the fifth grade. What began as an itemizing of daily endeavors has turned into the fertile ground from which I am born again and again. Her relentless pursuit of contacting the more illusive feelings that swim under the surface has continually informed my writing. She had the courage to look unflinchingly at what was really alive in the depths of her soul. This is the gift keeping a journal can offer if we are brave enough to accept it.

But we are all bound to a culture and an enculturation that we barely notice happening around us. We take daily happenings as fact when really it’s farthest from our inner truth. And although I sit here at the height of my freedom I recognize there are things I do not see that will change who I am yet again. Although Nin maneuvered adeptly to every place she brought her light there were places that couldn’t yet be seen. Her death over forty years ago leaves us with a place to pick up where she left off as women finding our voices in an environment that isn’t always exactly excited to hear what we have to say. She articulated things the rest of us may struggle to see but now there is a shift in the atmosphere and an opportunity to pick up that thread in the search for our authenticity.

I came back to Nin after not reading her for quite some time and discovered I had new eyes to see with. Life will do this. We grow older, go through trials, and hopefully gain greater wisdom. Now I see everything differently, including her. I see her search to create calmness out of the chaos but like any good woman of the time, including our own time, she was a caretaker as well and this kept her perpetually searching outwards for what would bring greater clarity and wholeness. Wholeness will never come through material surroundings or possessions, it’s not a man or a woman or children, it’s inside. It’s becoming well acquainted with the inner life that lives of its own volition.

Nin plumbed those depths in her own particular way and maybe what held her back still sabotages many women today, the hard final decisions, confrontation, and hurting others. It’s easy to over-give until we are depleted, then when we try to find fullness we are only left with exhaustion. None of this works because we can’t fundamentally change anything or anyone but ourselves. No more of our love, time, or devotion is going to change another or our circumstances.

And here is where we take the next step, for us and all our sisters (and brothers!) We take care of ourselves, thoroughly, lovingly, and wholeheartedly. We transform the only thing we can, ourselves. We own our gifts and share them. We face what we think we can’t survive and by surviving it we move forward. I see her writing more clearly now and thank her for all her hard work that helps me see myself more clearly. It helps name the things I want and the things I don’t.

Find your Nin. Learning the lessons from our shared past helps build an authentic future.

kb