“She could only realize that she herself – her present self – was in some way different from the other-self. That she was seeing with different eyes and making the acquaintance of new conditions in herself that colored and changed her environment, she did not yet suspect.”
- Kate Chopin
European capitalistic way of life is unsustainable and leads to burnout. Living to work, constant availability, rushing, appealing to norms, and living life in an inward capacity, leads to life and time being work and not developing a quality way of life. It leads to depression, unhappiness, and an inability to be fulfilled. I know it all too well. I was living a life in constant motion and restraint, unable to be genuinely myself. I limited myself from being me, being expressive, making decisions for me. I know the feeling of not being able to express myself in a way that would be understood, being on the impossible pedestal of unhappiness, and having to show up for other people as a woman, friend, sister, or as a lover. I know the feeling of intense emotions, anger at the inability to change, and feeling lost.
I came to Grand Isle in the same state as Edna, a woman in tightly held by societal norms and her roles to other people, who wants to find herself and break away from the pressure of the life she created, carrying a primal need to change the circumstances of her life. Someone who was finally feeling different, a momentum change to be the person that she full wanted to be; different from the person I was yesterday. I relate to Edna and The Awakening she had on the beaches of Grand Isle. Kate Chopin’s ability to explain the deep emotions of life, society, expectations, and reality on the beaches where her awakening occurred, simultaneously with mine, was a fantastic experience I didn’t see coming.
Flying over the Mississippi!
I hugged my parents and my siblings on May 14th, driving over the Mississippi River, and finally landing in New Orleans. After driving hours listening to indie music and having a light conversation, I arrived in Grand Isle. I, and everyone around me, was exhausted from a day worth of traveling, leaving our busy lives in Los Angeles and USC behind. It was only that morning that I had said goodbye to my family and embarked on a journey that I knew would change me, something I was hungry for after two years of heavy work at USC. As a graduating transfer student, I was leaving behind a rough semester of dealing with mental illness. I was on the flight over, caught up in my mindset of worrying about my GPA and living up to my high expectations. As a pre-law student from a low-income, marginalized background, I always had something to live up to prove myself in the back of my head. Waking the next morning and opening my bedroom door to the beauty of the beach, the quietness of the house, and the overall calmness of the Great Isle, I had too recheck in with myself to make sure it was all real. It was so surreal, walking down the path to the beach and experiencing the intense emotions I know all too well, but through the writing of Chopin and the life of Edna.
“The voice of the sea is seductive; never ceasing, whispering, clearing, murmuring, inviting the soul to wander for a spell in the abysses of solitude; to lose itself in mazes of inward contemplation. The voice of the sea speaks to the soul. The touch of the sea is sensuous, enfolding the body in its soft, close embrace.”
- Kate Chopin
That morning, we walked down to the beach, felt the hot sand between our toes, and felt the warm gulf water around our legs. We walked across the water, getting a breaker of rocks with much little marine life. We relaxed on the rocks and looked out to the water, talking about our lives and tattoos and suddenly getting a glimpse of a family of dolphins making their way across the gulf. There was so much beauty in the nature around us. The water was so calm, and just the serene silence of the gulf was intoxicating. Watching the family drive their buggies around the isle, finding places to park on the beach, and the dogs running by. But there is something particular about the water, and I was similarly drawn to the water like Edna.
The water draws you into Grand Isle, there is a sort of calmness that resolves over this whole beach town, and there is a sort of sleepiness that forces you too slow down and be reflective. I found myself constantly looking out toward it, yearning to be back in it, on the shore, and enjoying the silence, the pause you receive. Juxtaposed with the calmness of the sea, the wreckage left by the Hurricane Ida surrounds Grand Isle. It is mad how nature can be so beautiful, yet so sad, painful, and moving so fast like the winds of a hurricane. Your plans can go into disarray, people die, people leave, a pandemic and things can get ugly, and you are thrown around, losing your purpose and yourself. I think this is the same awareness that Chopin had with her complications with mental illness and the knowledge that a hurricane completely wiped out an island she used to visit, Cheniere. I think this because I had the same awakening and awareness that nature can make you lose everything in seconds, even when you are already struggling with what you are facing.
Throughout my time in Grand Isle and reading The Awakening, I felt impossibly connected to Edna. I found myself rooting for her in her journey to find herself, the same journey I found myself on leaving Los Angeles for the first time and what I wanted on this trip. Like Edna, I was longing for a change: from the roles in life that I had a responsibility to the societal expectations and family and relationship expectations. I had moments where I destroyed things and felt guilty. I have made some silly decisions, all in the namesake of feeling some control over nature. Over how it could be so beautiful one day, and seconds later, your world collides with another and makes a change forever. How you can feel like you are on the right path, but you suddenly realize you aren’t. As a white woman of the 19th century, Edna has similarities to me as a Black woman of 2022. Although I have a significantly different lived experience than this woman, we relate because of how society has prevented us from being indeed us. We both want to engage in the most radical act of loving ourselves and choosing you for the first time. Although Kate Chopin is not a Black woman, nor do they have the experiences of a Black woman in 2022; this quote I am leaving you with captures ultimately The Awakening Edna had, and I am in the midst of. Radical love comes from radical decisions that might trample on the little lives around you. Women have so much power and strength that we need to return to ourselves.
“As a black woman, the decision to love yourself just as you are is a radical act. And I'm as radical as they come.”
Bethanee Epifani J. Bryant
