Riding with Henry & Anaïs/Mrs. Dalloway, Party of One

It is a widely known fact about Henry Miller, that his favorite means of transportation was riding a bicycle, and during the most passionate phase of his ten-year affair with Anaïs Nin, in Paris in the early Thirties, he would bike over to have their clandestine rendezvous while Nin’s husband was on his work-related travels, the lovers’ meetings sometimes lasting for days on end, meetings he preferred calling, somewhat boorishly, fuck-fests, but let’s forgive him; with Henry, boorishness is half the charm.

I agree with Miller on the biking. I can’t think of a more fun or healthy way to get from A to B. The wind in my face. The steep hill, the heart pounding, the Hi-yo, Silver, away! -ride down on the other side, only a tad concerned over the brakes because it’s been four years since the last official spring check-up, but they seem to be working fine, so off we go!

These have been some gorgeous summer days here in Finland, and everybody, who weren’t unlucky enough to have to be working, have collected their beach gear and motored to a near-by beach, and if they weren’t beach people, to a near-by park, to the amusement park, up to the Pyynikki ridge to eat those lovely donuts, anywhere, as long as it was out and about.

This is something I, too, did with my days. After another restless night of tossing and turning, and sweating off the residue alcohol in my body from a full day and night of partying with a friend of mine, Swinton, like the book nerds and movie geeks that we are, I got up late, to discover the sun, the old goat, already high in the sky, and my mini hangover almost, well, over.

“Man, I’ve got to stop partying like this”, I thought, as I did the dishes from our super-sized eating fest; pasta with avocado and pine seeds, hold the pecorino this time, because Swinton is strictly a no-dairy -girl, and took out the bottle of Prosecco and another of Riesling that we had consumed while watching old movies – isn’t the Eighties now officially an era of Oldies, too?

Three movies, two liters of pasta deliciousness, two bottles of wine, one hour of throwing a baseball back and forth before the festivities inside began, a favor to me, since Swinton is an easy burner and hates the sun, whereas I was over the moon about having another soul over on my day off to play catch with, I just know I was a Labrador Retriever in previous life, so there you have it. “Now don’t tell me this isn’t fun”, I asked, fearing the answer, but seeing that she did not suck at the game. “It is kind of addictive, I must say”, was the gracious answer.

I am an easy burner, too, and used to hate being in the line of fire. If someone had told me in my twenties, that one day I would not only do the Sunday biking any given day like I meant it, with sun block and everything, let alone beg a friend to play with me in the sun, I would never have believed it.

Of course, I would never have believed that a person can sleep so poorly for so long and not be dead already, either.

The route to Rauhaniemi Beach goes past the quarry-looking construction site; they are hammering up the roads and making them anew, a big project, and the mountains of cobblestones are as high as buildings, and I picture myself just getting off work in Liverpool. The lake is on my right, though, and so sparkly in the blazing sun. The sail boats sit next to one another, the sails tucked in, waiting for someone to come untuck them and take them out. The gulls are hollering, the waves come in in tranquil motion. If it is there, I can’t see it right now. But you never can, can you, until the fin is out, breaking the surface, targeted and closing in on you.

Anaïs Nin wanted pleasure.

I want pleasure, too. I want my sleep back. 

On the beach, I stand in line for some gelato. A woman in her fifties, in a white top, tries to cut in ahead of me, but I tell her off. Do not fuck with an insomniac. I want my damn gelato, too, just as badly as the next person. I pay for my portion and walk slowly on the white sand and the large rocks. I guess people aren’t on their summer holidays, yet, since the beach isn’t swarming with folks. One can actually walk around.

I sit on the far end of a bench, because there is someone else sitting on the other end, and eat my scoops of yogurt-forest fruit and vanilla. We both watch four boys for a while, aged eleven or twelve I think, as they dive off the platform, making funny jumps, egging on each other. They go in in succession, one right after another, but somehow manage not to dive on top of each other, then hurriedly swim out, climb back up, repeat.

One of the boys isn’t as keen on diving as the others, or making funny jumps, and he is always the last one to go. “Come on! Don’t be a pussy!” the others call out from the water. Finally, every time, he jumps, his body straight, like a log, or an arrow. But still he does go in, comes back out, climbs up with the rest, and thus forces himself to overcome his fear.

I understand this fear perfectly. I check for the shark every time I go in, knowing it cannot be here, it’s a lake, it’s Finland. But in the third sequel, the fourth and final movie, it did follow Ellen Brody all the way to the other side of America to have its revenge, the resentful beast, and so what if it was a terrible film? Michael Caine was in it, so it can’t be that bad, no matter how bad it is. So I’m not counting my chickens.

I ride past the Pyynikki Beach, a more Jaws-like beach so I don’t frequent it myself, and it does look a lot more like the holidays are upon us there. Sun bathers on towels and blankets everywhere.

Now, Henry Miller might have been a little rough around the edges, and liked to give out an impression of being a hard-ass. But the story goes, when he followed Anaïs Nin to New York, fearing she might have cooled off towards him, having realized he was, in fact, desperately in love with her, his only belongings with him on the long boat ride, in his tiny trunk, were some wine glasses and plates with painted stars on them, from Louveciennes, Anaïs’ home in France, and a blanket that had a significance for them as lovers.

How romantic is that? Henry Miller was a big softy, in the end, and I don’t care how many times he wants to ensure us that he isn’t, with all his cocks and cunts and fucking. The fact is that when head over heels, men become encyclopedias of grand romantic gestures.

I have no idea if the story about the wine glasses and the blanket is true. There is some dispute over how much in Anaïs Nin’s diaries is actually real, and how much of it is fantasy and literature, but nevertheless I love that story. And it might not be so far off, anyway. The letters and telegrams they sent each other at the height of their passion are undeniable evidence of their eloquence and beauty in words, both Anaïs’ and Henry’s.

Another small story comes to my mind, one that always makes me smile, documented in Nin’s journal, during when she was having simultaneous affairs with Miller and the psychoanalyst, Dr. René Allendy. As mentioned above, because Nin’s husband, Hugh Guiler, was travelling so much for his work at the bank, she was able to meet her lovers at her house. Her maid was in on the affairs and carried out her duties with the utmost tact and delicacy, only pointing out to her mistress one time, as Nin had just bid farewell to one and was busy removing all evidence of that encounter, while getting ready to meet the other, that all of madam’s friends were bald.

I skip going to the Arboretum. They tore down the gazebo I used to love, because the roof was leaking I guess, and built another one, not nearly as pretty or romantic, or even practical, with just three small benches and a dirt floor, and already some genius has tried to set one of the benches on fire. The gazebo is depressing, so I head home.

You’d think after hours of biking all around town, one would have no problem getting some sleep at night.

I go under for about fifteen minutes. Fifteen minutes, and wake up to myself screaming in horror. What the nightmare was, I don’t know. It is gone the second I sweep the sleeping mask off my face.

Maybe I should quit following the Daily Jaws account on Instagram, it can’t be helping my irrational fears one bit, I think in the dead of night.

Except if I shouldn’t quit, the footage of live sharks they post is always interesting, I think, and what about that stop-motion animation that one guy did with Legos, made to double for the climax scene, when the shark attacks Orca and kills Quint? Now that was all kinds of fabulous, I think.

There's that ringing again, in my ears, I think.

Must that goddamn alarm clock pound away with such deafening thumps? I think.

The Riesling Swinton brought with her the other day was really something, I think.

Is my beloved getting any sleep at the cabin? I think.

I wonder if we are going to be together till we die, I think.

I wish I was dead, I think.

I have to remember to call mother, I think.

I should just turn on the lights and resume reading the latest Stephen King, I think.

But it might give me even worse nightmares, I think.

Okay, then, The Waves by Virginia Woolf it is, I think.

But what if I were to doze off just then, and screw up all my changes to any shut-eye by turning on the lights? I think.

Besides, I’m so afraid, even Ms. Woolf might be too much for me right now, I think.

I can’t find a cool spot, I think. 

  

It’s morning, I think.