Awakening

I just finished Kate Chopin's The Awakening.

Denise and I were talking the other day about how students might find non-fiction easier than fiction. I guess this is because it tends to be a little more straightforward and less picturesque. Of course, that's a huge overgeneralization. Anyway, back to Chopin. In one respect I think this book will be easier than others for students: there are moments where Chopin just comes out and says specifically what is going on with Edna in very quotable chunks. It seems like every other page has underlining in it in my book and I am a very picky underliner.

One thing I did not notice or take the time to notate in my first read(s) of the book was the use of two words: awakening and possession. These words are all over the place in the whole book but particularly in the last chapters.

That begs an interesting question about love and possession. Is to love and be loved a form of possession? We feel entitled to something when we love someone and they love us back, so I guess that would be a form of ownership. I got into a conversation with my mom about how some people are so hard to be around because they seem to think popularity and love are areas for competition. They have a need to be loved the most or more than someone else. I think Edna was the opposite of this. She loved very deeply but found that love took more from her than it gave. She was very sensitive to the level of sacrifice she had to attain to be around her loved ones. I do not question whether or not she loved her kids. She loved them but found it difficult to be around them because of all that she had to do for them out of that love and nurturing. It is difficult to love halfway.

Last summer, I was able to stay home with my kids full-time. Elizabeth was born in June. Nate was almost 3. I enjoyed watching Ellie grow from a sleepy infant to a cooing baby. I loved watching Nate grow and watching his mind work through things. I cuddled with them. I read to them. I watched Nathan run around. But by the end of the day when my husband came home, I had had enough. I not only needed adult conversation; I needed to have moments where I was not needed. This is the sticking point. This is what some fathers fail to understand and what a lot of pet-owners don't seem to get when they compare their pets to children. You cannot tell the kids, "Go away for two hours" or 'Take care of yourself for a couple of minutes so I can think about such and such issue fully instead of multi-tasking yet again." I found myself changing a diaper while talking on the phone and mentally planning dinner while keeping one eye and ear on a busy toddler. That's exhausting.

I think mothers also have a more physical connection with their children. For nine months, they knew my heartbeat as a constant sound. My kids come to me for snuggling and for comfort. When they want a hug or a comfy pillow, it is mommy they come running to. This is wonderful. But it too is draining. Last summer, when my husband would walk in the door, I would ask him, "Please hold them. Let me have half an hour where I do not hold a kid." It wasn't like I held them all day long, either. It was just that throughout the day, they would need me, and that need was such a physical need. I needed to recharge somehow, and that only seems to come from being away from them for a little bit.

In the book, that image of the sea seemed so appropriate. That ebb and flow of water under the sway of something so powerful and mysterious. I could see any love relationship as having that pull. There should be an equal balance there. Something giving but also taking, something taking but also giving. My children take some of my energy but they give it back to in the weirdest and sweetest of ways. Edna got to a point where she the kids were just a reminder of everything in her life that was always pulling, pulling. With that association made, it was hard to see them as anything else. That was particularly clear to me when she was with Adele Ratignolle as Adele gave birth. Edna could focus only on the pain and "torture." To miss the wonder of it all: that a little person is now in the world and that little person is part you and part of your husband. The little person has ten fingers and ten toes and fingerprints and tiny little fingernails! She was right. She wasn't awake for it all. I don't know if that was a result of the chloroform or whatever they used on women back then, but...to only focus on the pain and the sacrifice means she missed out on much that was good. The awakening she had seemed to close her off to that possibility.

This all puts me in mind of Virgina Woolf's "A Room of One's Own." Right now, I am home alone. I have been home alone all day, trying to get rid of a sinus headache. I'm supposed to be grading papers. Oops. It is amazing how much of a difference it makes to have some time to myself. Right now I am feeling the ebb and flow of teaching: good moments in the classroom vs. weekend hours spent grading papers!