A young girl in a Red Polka-Dotted Dress with a Vanilla Dream

“I took the opium of dream in order to face the hideousness of life.”

The body is a curious thing, we breathe air, we walk on our feet on the constructed path ways of civilization, we close our eyes to the truth but can let our bodies go to a point where are subconscious dreams come alive, these dreams of the events, facts everyday faces and things we see, we have restrictions, we are not boundless, limitations are shown by the outer layers of our skin, but the body can let go completely where the back arches in a cry of pleasure in a moment of pure ecstasy. 

The body is a curious thing, we are produced by a body, we exit the womb, into a world produced by bodies, then exit the earth engraved into the dirt of the world, cells, microscopic bits of our previous body remain as a piece of the earths history that has been developing for centuries on end. The cycle happens again, and in each life you have you become something else, develop an aspect you were in a previous life, I believe that when one dies you wake up as someone else, a new born about to start in this world all over until you reach a point of understanding and of serenity you had not achieved in your past lives. Dreams allow you to venture into all aspects of your life, they allow you to feel and experience things that you might never do in reality. Like Miller who says he " believes that only a dreamer who has fear neither of life nor death will discover this infinitesimal iota of force which will hurtle the cosmos into whack- instantaneously" (Miller). This idea of achieving a certain level of discovery of ones inner workings will allow you to move forward. The way Miller goes about in his writing for Walk Up Down China shows just how much this idea of liberty of the body has, how far can one venture into their subconscious of dreams, how one is able to explore the unknown territory that is of the human body, an unusual specimen that has achieved so much over centuries. We are an animal by nature, we derive from an animalistic past, and we are drawn by the unknown always entering uncharted waters.

This concept of freedom and liberty is something that ties perfectly with the body, knowing just how free are we? Just how much freedom do we get as a human, we have been pre enrolled into the mankinds idea and perception of how this civilization should function. We came out of the womb into a pre determined world that one day one would have to follow the past and its present, moving future, staying between the lines of the body and the civilization one lives in. A nation where we are at “a pre natal condition- the born man living unborn, the unborn man dying born” (Miller). Understanding the limitations of the body and its interaction with its surroundings is one that Henry Miller focuses on in his piece of Walk up down China, an exploration of the dreams and the mind of a man, understanding where one lies in this world, what is ones place, “the more I think of it the more I am convinced that what disturbs me is not whether I am dreaming or insane but whether the man on the sidewalk, the man with arms outstretches, was myself”(Miller).

Freedom. What does this world signify? How does one let themselves go to a point of no return, how is one to exceed the expectations of oneself, and allow thyself to venture into your darkest desires and brightest dreams. How do we know to what point is ok to explore our imagination in reality, can we only explore the pleasures and desires and dreams we have within the lines of our mind our can we tare apart this civilization and rules and laws to experiment with the ideas of the creative, the outsiders. Henry Miller perfectly questions this idea of dreams and how one it to go about it, how one finds oneself in dreams, for dreams is a place where our body doesn’t even control, our mind doesn’t control the images we see, our subconscious the depths of our mind is the one that allows us an inch of freedom every night if we’re lucky. Miller poses  “if it is possible to leave the body in dream, or in death, perhaps it is possible to leave the body forever, to wander endlessly embodied, unhooked, a nameless identity, or an unidentified name, a soul unattached, indifferent to everything, a soul immortal, perhaps incorruptible, like god- who can say?”(Miller).

This idea of liberation, a state of freedom, allowing ones imagination run wild and explore the jungle of the mind, letting their visions comes through their creativity by means of paintings, writings, music, performance etc. Often American expatriate writers coming to Paris during the 19^th -20^th century felt that they could achieve their explorations of their pleasures far greater there than where they came from. That “of itself Paris initiates no dramas, they are begun elsewhere. Paris is simply an obstetrical instrument that tears the living embryo from the womb and puts it in the incubator. Paris is the cradle of the artificial births. Rocking her in the cradle each one slips back into his soul”(Pizer). As Donald Pizer says in his text the Sexual Geography of Expatriate Paris, demonstrates that Paris cuts this connection to the rules and laws one perhaps faced in a different place and allows them this feeling of limitless exploration. He explains that authors such as Hemingway, Stein, and Alice Toklas and so on created in their works this idea that Paris allowed them to explore their dreams with pen and paper. They were allowed to dance in their minds, explore the pleasures of life, and explore the desires they shared.

Walking down the streets in my little red polka doted dress with my red youthful curls bouncing as a took each step, holding my fathers hand and a vanilla ice-cream in a brown caramelized cone we walked down the streets of Paris. My ten-year-old feet in their black little rounded shoes braced the cobbled stone pavements; my sweet innocent eyes admired the illustrational lamps shining above our heads. In each little window had a display of some new novel, delicious chocolates, beautiful chandeliers, or a fascinating painting, and the smell of the sweet, oh so sweet mouthwatering pastries being crafted from the boulangeries. It was the first time I was in Paris, the beauty and femininity of the city played with my mind, I wanted to visit more, I was enchanted by the narrative aura of the architecture, the way the women in their café chair with their red Chanel tinted lips, gazed at the handsome men, their laugh and their quick tongues effortlessly displaying their knowledge for various subjects in French. At that point I was in a French lycee in Norway, (a colder more reserved place, business, law dominated), and was beginning to understand it and speak it, but hearing it for the first time from a Parisian man and woman was exciting. Ever since I was younger I was drawn to stories taking place in a Victorian time but always-fictional novels. I was never interested by the non-fiction stories; I’d rather see an image of someone’s imagination placed by words on a paper than seeing someone’s biography stated on a sheet. With this love for romantic stories I picked up on the qualities of such endeavors when I was a young girl walking through the Eiffel tower park at night as the lights began to sparkle, it was a city I could feel bursts with life, art and creativity. I was young with an innocence, no sexual connotations. Yet within this purity I could feel the passion the city held, I could sense the romantic, fictisious aura of Paris was evident, however as I come back from the various countries I’ve lived in and been too, this romantic view of Paris has always remained, and has enhanced, for Paris truly manages to capture beauty and art in one. However by reading numerous authors works I can see how they take this romance one step further to love, to love making, this sexual connection between Paris and an artists is a theme that often conjures up.  

Artists I feel no matter where they are positioned will always want to venture into the world of the unknown, will forever want to explore their bodies and experiment with this boundary of life. Paris will help bring this out “a late afternoon and the heavy whiteness of it are stifling. A heavy somnolent whiteness, like the belly of a jaded woman. Back and forward the blood ebbs, the contours rounded with soft light, the huge billowy cupolas taut as savage teats.”(Miller). In this piece Miller compares Sacre Coeur to a woman’s body, this relationship between Paris architecture is easily compared to feminine traits, this city lends itself to such ideas and perceptions. Miller even goes to say that wandering around Paris if one gets lost you have a way of coming back to where you wanted to be, Paris lets you get lost in your imagination, it’s a canvas for many authors, painters, musicians. Paris does have a way of capturing the artist, has a way of teasing the artists with her beauty and rich culture and history, it intises the viewer, it’s said to be one of the most romantic cities in the world, if not the most romantic city in the world. Thus evidently expatriates will read the novels by the great American writers and think that these authors somewhat fictious realities will be their truths. I think Paris is a beautiful place, and can lend itself to rather sexual and passionate view and ideas, however the experience you have in Paris shapes the way you perceive it. I have had a great experiences here and it continues to surpass my expectations and wildest dreams, thus for me this city is a place of great seduction and allure and permits me to with its restrictions roam freely in her realm. Like Miller once said “the streets swarm through my fingers, I gather the whole of France in my one hand, in the honeycomb I am, in the warm belly of the sphinx”(Miller).