Nap Time Generations [ENG]

Hey, guys !

I don’t have ANY little time for me and I have an impressive moutain of homework. I sleep very badly, I am most of the time upset and grumpy and the only thing I want is a little nap, please, My God !

But it is probably a too big request…

So I decided to write my desire of napping in an essay I had to write for my Nonfiction Writing Class. For this essay, we had to take a photography (or more) of our choice and wrote what it remembered us.

So there is my first finish and polish English essay, I hope we will enjoy

(for the French translation, please, wait, I need to sleep before….)

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NAP TIME GENERATIONS

A nice garden with an impeccable grass. An unexpected beautiful weather. Insects noise is melting with some playful shouts. A delicious and tenacious smell of barbecue, spices and braised Camembert in the air that filled your nostrils and reminds you it is summer.

The fresh and hot wind characteristic of the end of August and the full stomachs are perfect conditions for napping. And some have not waited for you to start.

In one of the garden’s corner, three white deckchairs put in the shade of a garden shed. Lying down on them, asleep, three bodies. Three generations, side by side, performing the same ritual, as an ancestral tradition.

In my mother’s family, napping is almost an institution. Maybe it is genetic, if the afternoon sleeping gene exists. Maybe we have South French roots, experts in the noble Art of napping under a tree. Maybe we have just a funny internal clock, which puts us to sleep after lunch and wakes us up in the middle of the night, just in time for The Young and the Restless reruns.

Anyway, each family dinner is an opportunity for a great inter-generational nap.

On the left, my “Mamy”, Jacqueline, 89 years old, for who the nap is not a recent discovery. In my opinion, she is the instigator of this rebellion of sleeping hours. I have no memories of a day in her company where she didn’t do her nap ritual. When she has plenty of time, napping during several hours, but she can easily adapt her rhythm to any situation. At a cafe terrace, during a free concert or even during shopping days. Everywhere, she will always find a bench or the ledge of a fountain, in the shade, for a quick sleep, her back leaning over the stone of an unknown house.

She is from the north of France, but she lives now in a very quiet, maybe too much quiet, tiny village in the south, lost in the mountains, a perfect place for a peaceful retirement, and where the only activity (except running after a scared sheep flock) is napping.

The middle, my mother, Chantal, 58 years old, applies the principles instilled by her mother. But unlike her, it is not a small resting anywhere, but real slices of sleep on a sofa during several hours. And do not make any noise in the same room where she sleeps if you do not want to wake the dragon. Nothing puts her in a bad mood more than being interrupted in her almost-daily ritual.

If you have something to do with her during afternoon and she says “Wait ! I’ll take a little nap before !”, oppose yourself, rebel yourself ! Make strong coffee, put her in the car and turn on the radio to a station broadcasting heavy metal, if you do not want to come back tomorrow… For finally come back the day after tomorrow and the day after the day after tomorrow, always because of this perpetual ceremonial.

Right, my little sister, Gabrielle, 16 years old, continues to honor our family tradition and show you our famous art named “open mouth siesta”. This technique, regularly used by Mamy and my mother, consists on sleeping with your mouth open without producing any sound, in order to create general hilarity, and then a palpable anxiety when someone asks “Do you think she is dead ?”

Gabrielle is currently a high school student, so the rest during the week is a prohibited activity for her, although it is rather tempting to practice it during a philosophy course at 2p.m.

But do not think it is a trend only for women. Another photograph can proved it, took in my parent’s house after a birthday lunch. On the right of the big red sofa, head down, I sleep peacefully, can’t escape to my destiny of nap practitioner who runs in my veins.

But on the left, exactly in the same position, reverse, my brother, Yann, 32 years old, sleeps deeply, like if everything in the world can not disturb him. Another gender, another generation, to add to our list, like the evidence of a constant rather embarrassing some days, but so significant other times.