If there's one thing I envy, it's the sight of a mother or father waking their baby. In fact, I think I could pinpoint the profound change I experienced as a result of becoming a mother on this moment: waking up (with or without a headache, with or without a hangover, having slept well or badly, on a clear day or a rough one) with joy. While my children were little, every awakening was magnificent. I would go—almost run—to their room, silently watch them sleep, enjoying that feeling of absolute peace I've never found anywhere else, and then I would devote myself to the wonderful task of waking them up: touching their soft, warm skin, placing my hand on their chest to let the rise and fall of the rise and fall of the rise and fall of the rise, one fine day, in a voice that I don't know where it came from and that I've never recovered.
The day began with a host of pleasant sensations, and everything was nice and fun for a while: sleep-filled eyes, disheveled little heads, wrinkled pajamas damp with sweat, even soaked diapers. The smiles, the joy of being reunited.
Since those years, there have been all kinds of awakenings. During the years of frenetic activity, the first neural connection took me back either to what had happened the day before or to what lay ahead on my agenda for the day ahead. Anything—a boring meeting, an unwanted appointment, a tiresome job, a disappointment—could ruin my awakening.
Later, burdened by years and ailments, awakening was better or worse depending on how my newly awake body pronounced itself. It has a lot to do, of course, with whether the night was one of continuous sleep or of debilitating insomnia.
Throughout life, there have also been sensual awakenings, with sun on my skin and welcome caresses; awakenings that I wish weren't in an anguished or painful reality; unhappy awakenings, which brought me back to the sadness of mourning; awakenings in new cities that awaited me; slow awakenings granted as a gift.
Many times, awakening has to do with the dream I experienced during the night. They say that we all dream, but only some of us remember ourselves, and that we are—oh, those of us—who have shallow and, therefore, unrefreshing sleep. My dreams are usually—or seem to me to be—long, entertaining, full of adventures and delusions. I almost never have nightmares. Often, when I wake up, a part of my brain is still alive in the night's dream.
And then, of course, there are the metaphorical awakenings, like the one that Edna Pontellier experiences in the novel Kate Chopin wrote in 1899. The awakening It speaks of discovery, of rebellion, of the yearning for freedom, of feminism. The world today, my country in particular, is terribly sleepy. A sleepy multitude living sleepy lives, an endless lethargy.
