Meaning

Monica Baldwin is pointing to the very first moment of consciousness each day as a kind of gift that goes unnoticed precisely because it arrives so reliably. Before the demands of the day have assembled themselves, there is a brief window of pure possibility. Her claim is that this fleeting threshold state, not any later achievement or pleasure, holds the highest quality of experience the day can offer.

Context

This line comes from Baldwin's memoir published in 1949, a book that recounts her return to ordinary life after spending roughly twenty-eight years living as a nun in an enclosed religious order. Having been separated from the everyday world for so long, she encountered even mundane experiences with fresh attention. The observation about waking carries extra weight coming from someone who had spent decades in a structured contemplative environment where each day began with deliberate intention rather than distracted routine.

About the author

Monica Baldwin was a British writer whose life followed an unusual arc. She entered a Catholic convent as a young woman and remained cloistered for nearly three decades before eventually leaving religious life. Her memoir about that transition, which includes this quote, was well received and gave readers an outsider's perspective on mid-twentieth-century everyday existence. Her writing is characterized by careful attention to small sensory and emotional details, reflecting both her literary sensibility and the heightened awareness she developed during her years of contemplative withdrawal.