Marie Darrieussecq, in her fight against insomnia, states that one of the things she has tried – therapy, barbiturates, alcohol – has worked – albeit partially, she has not completely overcome the lack of sleep – is siesta. Siesta, yeah, siesta, sleep blow. It seems like a contradiction, fixing the lack of sleep with sleep, but there is always an hour a day, in which the world expects nothing, in which you do not expect anything from the world, and in which there is also no pressure to sleep at night. Darrieussecq was able to take a nap around 18:00, which has saved him not infrequently from night insomnia.

Siesta, a practice that used to be associated with laziness, neglect, which today has become a mouthpiece, to the point of recommending personal coaches, fashion magazines, health programs, always as a pause between work and work, to be completely productive once you have rested a little, and thus generate tension between the difficulty of sleeping and the need to sleep well rested and productive. But Miguel Ángel Hernández, as a gift, understands it as a virtue in his book The Gift of Siesta. Siesta would be an ellipse, an unproductive cut, a time of its own, a search for the sovereign. Self-companionship time. A little pleasure that would bring us closer to something like happiness. Only from what Hannah Arendt said: “To think, you need to move away from the world and get into the shadows.” A gift, therefore, a gift, a refuge, a pause, a brief moment of happiness in the midst of the storm. We should go back to the way nature has programmed us to sleep. The Romans called the sixth, interchangeably at noon, noon, after breakfast, or before dinner. Because nothing bad can happen to us while we take a nap.