"the frightening experience i am traversing now is this: with her i am acting out scenes which prove, in the end, the strength and vividness of my memories and fantasies superimposed over reality. it is such a subtle, elusive happening, that i cannot describe it. it is as if i see and hear you clearly for a while and then become drunk, confused, drugged. and all the time a part of me is aware of the distortions. it is frightening because it causes self-doubt, a doubt of what i have always believed in: my intuition."

--anaïs nin (spring, 1957)