There are only two kinds of freedom in the world; the freedom of the rich and powerful, and the freedom of the artist and the monk who renounces poss… - Anaïs Nin

The times in his studio when he washed his hands and they smoked, for his hands were so warm and the water so cold.

The artist is the only one who knows that the world is a subjective creation, that there is a choice to be made, a selection of elements. It is a materialization, an incarnation of his inner world. Then he hopes to attract others into it. He hopes to impose his particular vision and share it with others. And when the second stage is not reached, the brave artist continues nevertheless. The few moments of communion with the world are worth the pain, for it is a world for others, an inheritance for others, a gift to others, in the end. When you make a world tolerable for yourself, you make a world tolerable for others. We also write to heighten our own awareness of life. We write to lure and enchant and console others. We write to serenade our lovers. We write to taste life twice, in the moment, and in retrospection. We write, like Proust, to render all of it eternal, and to persuade ourselves that it is eternal. We write to be able to transcend our life, to reach beyond it. We write to teach ourselves to speak with others, to record the journey into the labyrinth. We write to expand our world when we feel strangled, or constricted, or lonely. We write as the birds sing, as the primitives dance their rituals. If you do not breathe through writing, if you do not cry out in writing, or sing in writing, then don't write, because our culture has no use for it. When I don't write, I feel my world shrinking. I feel I am in a prison. I feel I lose my fire and my color. It should be a necessity, as the sea needs to heave, and I call it breathing.

During the nuit blanche I think: Henry, my love, I can love you better now that you cannot hurt me. I can love you more gaily. More loosely. I can endure space and distance and betrayals. Only the best, the best and the strongest. Henry, my love, the wanderer, the artist, the faithless one who has loved me so well. Believe me, nothing has changed in me toward you except my courage. I cannot walk with one love ever. My head is strong, my head, but to walk, to walk into love I need miracles, the miracles of excess, and white heat, and two-ness! Lie here, breathing into my hair, over my neck. No hurt will come from me. No criticalness, no judgment. I bear you in my womb.