Sidewalk Chalk

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Speaker 1 Welcome to bedtime stories for everyone,

Speaker 1 in which nothing much happens.

Speaker 1 You feel good,

Speaker 1 and then

Speaker 1 you fall asleep.

Speaker 1 I'm Catherine Nikolai.

Speaker 1 I write and read everything you hear on Nothing Much Happens

Speaker 1 with Audio Engineering by Bob Wittersheim.

Speaker 1 We give to a different charity each week. And this week, we are giving to Midwest Small Breed Rescue.

Speaker 1 They are a volunteer-based rescue for small breed and mixed dogs where they receive love and care until they find that special home to call their own. You can learn more about them in our show notes.

Speaker 1 For an ad-free and bonus-filled version of this show, and to support the work we do for just a dime a day, We hope you'll consider becoming a premium subscriber.

Speaker 1 There's a link in our notes, and Spotify and Apple users can click the handy join button right on our show page. The first month is on us.

Speaker 1 Just like you can condition your muscles, you can condition your brain to fall asleep and return to sleep more quickly and easily.

Speaker 1 And the good news is that all you need to do to accomplish this is to listen.

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Speaker 1 I'll tell the story twice,

Speaker 1 and I'll go a little slower the second time through.

Speaker 1 If you wake in the night, don't hesitate to turn an episode right back on.

Speaker 1 Our story tonight is called Sidewalk Chalk.

Speaker 1 And it's a story about a journey through the park on a bright day.

Speaker 1 It's also about a cold drink from the coffee shop,

Speaker 1 a frog blinking from a pond, Alice and the caterpillar, birch trees and drawings on the sidewalk, and paying more attention

Speaker 1 when small, happy moments wash over you.

Speaker 1 Now

Speaker 1 let's settle in.

Speaker 1 Get as comfortable as you can.

Speaker 1 You are about to fall asleep.

Speaker 1 And you will sleep deeply all night long.

Speaker 1 I know I am just a stranger on the internet,

Speaker 1 but I hope you can feel

Speaker 1 how earnestly I care,

Speaker 1 how I am holding space for you to let your guard down

Speaker 1 and feel safe

Speaker 1 and dream sweetly.

Speaker 1 Take a deep breath in through your nose.

Speaker 1 Exhale through your mouth.

Speaker 1 Again, inhale.

Speaker 1 Out with sound.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 Sidewalk chalk.

Speaker 1 The sunshine and warm weather was back.

Speaker 1 The storms last week had been a nice reprieve.

Speaker 1 The grass was green.

Speaker 1 The flowers looked refreshed.

Speaker 1 And the lily pads in the pond seemed to have doubled in number in the last few days.

Speaker 1 I'd felt the urge to get out

Speaker 1 and catch some sun on my face.

Speaker 1 So I'd wandered into the park downtown.

Speaker 1 The coffee shop on Main Street had kombucha on tap,

Speaker 1 and I had a tall icy cup of it in my hand

Speaker 1 as I strolled past the newspaper kiosk at the entrance.

Speaker 1 The paved path circling the pond was busy with walkers and strollers,

Speaker 1 and I turned at a fork to go deeper into a wooded area.

Speaker 1 I love that feeling

Speaker 1 of even in the middle of town,

Speaker 1 being able to suddenly step into wilderness and nature.

Speaker 1 The bird song rose around me,

Speaker 1 like the volume dial had just been turned up.

Speaker 1 And a chipmunk crossed in front of me,

Speaker 1 his cheeks bulging with forage snacks.

Speaker 1 I sighed as I passed under the shade of a giant oak tree.

Speaker 1 The wind blew,

Speaker 1 and a few leftover raindrops that had been clinging to its leaves

Speaker 1 fell to my face and arms.

Speaker 1 I sipped at my tea,

Speaker 1 tart and floral.

Speaker 1 I thought it had been elderberry

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 huckleberry lemon.

Speaker 1 Either way, it was delicious.

Speaker 1 And I caught myself feeling

Speaker 1 truly happy,

Speaker 1 contented.

Speaker 1 I'd realize these moments flicker through my days all the time,

Speaker 1 like sunlight filtering down to the sidewalk through the leaves.

Speaker 1 and I'd been trying to pay more attention to them,

Speaker 1 to let them take up more space in my mind

Speaker 1 by simply witnessing them

Speaker 1 with my eyes wide open,

Speaker 1 my senses alert.

Speaker 1 It was as if I was marking them down,

Speaker 1 like a hatchmark chalked on a wall

Speaker 1 an accounting of the goodness in my days

Speaker 1 a small murky pool

Speaker 1 had formed from the rain around a stand of birch trees

Speaker 1 and as i passed it

Speaker 1 a sudden movement caught my eye

Speaker 1 It was immediately followed by a plop,

Speaker 1 and I realized I'd startled a frog.

Speaker 1 I stopped to wait for him to surface.

Speaker 1 Sure enough, a few seconds later,

Speaker 1 a tiny curved head

Speaker 1 and two round, blinking eyes peered up at me.

Speaker 1 I could just see see his limbs floating beneath the water line

Speaker 1 as ripples streamed away

Speaker 1 in concentric circles.

Speaker 1 I thought of a haiku I'd read

Speaker 1 from the book on my bedside table.

Speaker 1 The old pond.

Speaker 1 A frog jumps in

Speaker 1 the sound of the water.

Speaker 1 It had been written by a poet

Speaker 1 named Matsuo Basho,

Speaker 1 who died three hundred years before I'd been born

Speaker 1 and lived in a land six thousand miles away.

Speaker 1 Yet we'd both noted

Speaker 1 the same moment.

Speaker 1 He'd described exactly how it felt to be here

Speaker 1 right now.

Speaker 1 I smiled at the frog,

Speaker 1 finding the continuity from Basho to me

Speaker 1 a comfort and a joy.

Speaker 1 The path took me out of the copse of trees

Speaker 1 and into an orderly garden,

Speaker 1 full of lavender,

Speaker 1 delphinium, and foxglove.

Speaker 1 There were neat boxwoods, and topiaries

Speaker 1 carved into cones,

Speaker 1 spirals and giant toadstools.

Speaker 1 What a difference from the wild I'd just stepped out of.

Speaker 1 I almost expected to see the Queen of Hearts marching toward me.

Speaker 1 I looked down at the path

Speaker 1 and saw that someone else must have had the same thought.

Speaker 1 There was a white rabbit,

Speaker 1 sketched with sidewalk chalk on the pavement.

Speaker 1 Beside it was a pocket watch on a gold chain

Speaker 1 and a teapot.

Speaker 1 All of the drawings were a little bit faded,

Speaker 1 and I guessed they'd been made just before the rain had fallen.

Speaker 1 I paused,

Speaker 1 wondering if I'd dropped out of the poetry of Basho

Speaker 1 and down the rabbit hole into Wonderland.

Speaker 1 I remembered a flyer I'd seen at the coffee shop while waiting for my drink order,

Speaker 1 a program run by the library.

Speaker 1 What had it said?

Speaker 1 Something like stories and sidewalk chalk.

Speaker 1 I'd been skimming it when they called my name,

Speaker 1 and hadn't picked up much of what it was about.

Speaker 1 But clearly it was

Speaker 1 just like it sounded.

Speaker 1 I imagined a librarian

Speaker 1 telling about Alice and the Cheshire Cat,

Speaker 1 drawing out bottles with tags attached and playing cards

Speaker 1 and I felt a bit disappointed that I'd missed it.

Speaker 1 Grown-ups like stories, too.

Speaker 1 In the next section of pavement,

Speaker 1 the kids must have been encouraged to draw characters from the story.

Speaker 1 And I spotted what I thought might have been the Mad Hatter

Speaker 1 and the Caterpillar.

Speaker 1 There was also a dinosaur,

Speaker 1 Bingo, and what I was pretty sure was Cookie Monster.

Speaker 1 So they'd added a bit of their own favorites.

Speaker 1 At the edge of the flower garden was a small wooden box on a stand.

Speaker 1 Sort of like the little libraries in my own neighborhood,

Speaker 1 where you could borrow and lend books.

Speaker 1 But this one was full to bursting with coloured chalk,

Speaker 1 dusty cylinders

Speaker 1 and shades of pink and green and yellow,

Speaker 1 some fresh and unused,

Speaker 1 others smaller and broken,

Speaker 1 gathered at an old coffee cup,

Speaker 1 chalked on the pavement below the box

Speaker 1 were the simple words

Speaker 1 express yourself.

Speaker 1 What a delightful invitation.

Speaker 1 I sorted through the clinking pieces

Speaker 1 and sat down on the path.

Speaker 1 I drew a bit

Speaker 1 a tree,

Speaker 1 a blue bird,

Speaker 1 a rainbow with fluffy white clouds on either end.

Speaker 1 I drew the frog floating in the pool

Speaker 1 and the chipmunk with his stuffed cheeks.

Speaker 1 I went back to the faded images drawn by the storyteller

Speaker 1 and did my best to color them back in,

Speaker 1 retracing so that they would last a few more days.

Speaker 1 I thought about the poem in the woods,

Speaker 1 the story in the garden,

Speaker 1 and the attempt I'd been making to witness more of the good things

Speaker 1 that happened in my orbit.

Speaker 1 I took a blue stick of chalk back to the edge of the tree line.

Speaker 1 There was another line of poetry

Speaker 1 that had been drifting through my mind,

Speaker 1 a line by the profound and beautiful Mary Oliver.

Speaker 1 I sketched it out on the path,

Speaker 1 hoping that the next person who saw it

Speaker 1 would be likewise inspired.

Speaker 1 I stood back

Speaker 1 and whispered her instructions for living a life.

Speaker 1 She wrote,

Speaker 1 Pay attention,

Speaker 1 be amazed,

Speaker 1 Tell about it.

Speaker 1 Sidewalk Chalk

Speaker 1 The sunshine and warm weather was back.

Speaker 1 The storms last week

Speaker 1 had been a nice reprieve.

Speaker 1 The grass was green.

Speaker 1 The flowers looked refreshed.

Speaker 1 and the lily pads in the pond seemed to have doubled in number

Speaker 1 in the last few days.

Speaker 1 I'd felt the urge to get out

Speaker 1 and catch some sun on my face.

Speaker 1 So I'd wandered into the park downtown.

Speaker 1 The coffee shop on Main Street had kombucha on tap,

Speaker 1 and I had a tall, icy cup of it in my hand

Speaker 1 as I strolled past the newspaper kiosk

Speaker 1 at the entrance.

Speaker 1 The paved path circling the pond

Speaker 1 was busy with walkers

Speaker 1 and strollers,

Speaker 1 and I turned at a fork

Speaker 1 to go deeper into a wooded area.

Speaker 1 I love that feeling

Speaker 1 of even in the middle of town,

Speaker 1 being able to suddenly step

Speaker 1 into wilderness and nature.

Speaker 1 The bird song rose

Speaker 1 around

Speaker 1 me,

Speaker 1 like the volume dial had just been turned up,

Speaker 1 and a chipmunk crossed in front of me,

Speaker 1 his cheeks bulging with foraged snacks.

Speaker 1 I sighed as I passed under the shade of a giant oak tree.

Speaker 1 The wind blew,

Speaker 1 and a few leftover raindrops

Speaker 1 that had been clinging to its leaves

Speaker 1 fell to my face and arms.

Speaker 1 I sipped at my tea,

Speaker 1 tart and floral.

Speaker 1 I thought it had been

Speaker 1 elderberry

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 huckleberry lemon.

Speaker 1 Either way,

Speaker 1 it was delicious.

Speaker 1 And I caught myself feeling truly happy

Speaker 1 and contented.

Speaker 1 I'd realized these moments

Speaker 1 flicker through my days

Speaker 1 all of the time,

Speaker 1 like sunlight filtering down to the sidewalk

Speaker 1 through the leaves.

Speaker 1 And I'd been trying to pay more attention to them,

Speaker 1 to let them

Speaker 1 take up more space in my mind

Speaker 1 by simply witnessing them

Speaker 1 with my eyes wide open,

Speaker 1 my senses alert.

Speaker 1 It was as if

Speaker 1 I was marking them down

Speaker 1 like a hatchmark

Speaker 1 chalked onto a wall,

Speaker 1 an accounting

Speaker 1 of the goodness in my days.

Speaker 1 A small

Speaker 1 murky pool had formed from the rain

Speaker 1 around a stand of birch trees.

Speaker 1 And as I passed it, a sudden movement caught my eye.

Speaker 1 It was immediately followed by a plop,

Speaker 1 and I realized I'd startled the frog.

Speaker 1 I stopped to wait for him to surface.

Speaker 1 Sure enough,

Speaker 1 a few seconds later,

Speaker 1 a tiny curved head

Speaker 1 and two round, blinking eyes peered up at me.

Speaker 1 I could just see his limbs floating beneath the waterline

Speaker 1 as ripples streamed away

Speaker 1 in concentric circles.

Speaker 1 I thought of a haiku

Speaker 1 I'd read in the books on my bedside table

Speaker 1 The Old Pond

Speaker 1 A Frog Jumps In

Speaker 1 The Sound of Water

Speaker 1 It had been written by a poet

Speaker 1 named Matsuo Basho

Speaker 1 who died three hundred years before I'd been born

Speaker 1 and lived in a land six thousand miles away.

Speaker 1 Yet

Speaker 1 we'd both noted

Speaker 1 the same moment.

Speaker 1 He'd described exactly how it felt

Speaker 1 to be here

Speaker 1 right now.

Speaker 1 I smiled at the frog,

Speaker 1 finding the continuity

Speaker 1 from Basho to me

Speaker 1 a comfort

Speaker 1 and a joy.

Speaker 1 The path took me out of the cops of trees

Speaker 1 and into an orderly garden

Speaker 1 full of lavender,

Speaker 1 delphinium,

Speaker 1 and foxglove.

Speaker 1 There were neat boxwoods

Speaker 1 and topiaries carved

Speaker 1 into cones,

Speaker 1 spirals

Speaker 1 and giant toadstools.

Speaker 1 What a difference from the wild

Speaker 1 I just stepped out of.

Speaker 1 I almost expected

Speaker 1 to see the Queen of Hearts

Speaker 1 marching toward me.

Speaker 1 I looked down at the path

Speaker 1 and saw that someone must have had the same thought.

Speaker 1 There was a white rabbit

Speaker 1 sketched with sidewalk chalk on the pavement.

Speaker 1 Beside it was a pocket watch

Speaker 1 on a gold chain

Speaker 1 and a teapot.

Speaker 1 All of the drawings

Speaker 1 were a bit faded,

Speaker 1 and I guessed they'd been made

Speaker 1 just before the rain had fallen.

Speaker 1 I paused,

Speaker 1 wondering if I'd dropped out of the poetry

Speaker 1 of Basho

Speaker 1 and down the rabbit hole into Wonderland,

Speaker 1 I remembered a flyer I'd seen at the coffee shop

Speaker 1 while waiting for my drink order,

Speaker 1 a program run by the library.

Speaker 1 What had it said?

Speaker 1 Something like

Speaker 1 stories and sidewalk chalk.

Speaker 1 I'd been skimming it when they called my name

Speaker 1 and hadn't picked up much of what it was about.

Speaker 1 But clearly, it was

Speaker 1 just like it sounded.

Speaker 1 I imagined a librarian

Speaker 1 telling about Alice

Speaker 1 and the Cheshire Cat,

Speaker 1 drawing out bottles with tags attached

Speaker 1 and playing cards,

Speaker 1 and felt a bit disappointed

Speaker 1 that I'd missed it.

Speaker 1 Grown

Speaker 1 like stories too.

Speaker 1 In the next section of pavement,

Speaker 1 the kids must have been encouraged

Speaker 1 to draw characters from the story.

Speaker 1 And I spotted what I thought

Speaker 1 might have been the mad hatter

Speaker 1 and

Speaker 1 the caterpillar.

Speaker 1 There was also a dinosaur, bingo,

Speaker 1 and what I was pretty sure was Cookie Monster.

Speaker 1 So they'd added a bit of their own favorites.

Speaker 1 At the edge of the flower garden

Speaker 1 was a small wooden box on a stand,

Speaker 1 sort of like the little libraries in my own neighborhood,

Speaker 1 where you could borrow and lend books.

Speaker 1 But this one was full to bursting

Speaker 1 with colored chalk,

Speaker 1 dusty cylinders, and shades of pink, and green, and yellow,

Speaker 1 some fresh and unused,

Speaker 1 others smaller and broken,

Speaker 1 gathered in an old coffee cup.

Speaker 1 Chalked on the pavement below the box were the simple words

Speaker 1 express yourself.

Speaker 1 What a delightful invitation.

Speaker 1 I sorted through the clinking pieces

Speaker 1 And sat down on the path

Speaker 1 I drew a bit

Speaker 1 A tree,

Speaker 1 a bluebird,

Speaker 1 a rainbow with fluffy white clouds on either end

Speaker 1 I drew the frog floating in the pool

Speaker 1 And the chipmunk with his stuffed cheeks.

Speaker 1 I went back to the faded images drawn by the storyteller,

Speaker 1 and did my best to color them back in,

Speaker 1 retracing so that they would last

Speaker 1 for a few more days.

Speaker 1 I thought about the poem

Speaker 1 in the woods,

Speaker 1 the story in the garden,

Speaker 1 and the attempt I had been making

Speaker 1 to witness more of the good things

Speaker 1 that happened in my orbit.

Speaker 1 I took a blue stick of chalk

Speaker 1 back to the edge of the tree line.

Speaker 1 There was another line of poetry

Speaker 1 that had been drifting through my mind

Speaker 1 a line by the profound and beautiful Mary Oliver.

Speaker 1 I sketched it out on the path,

Speaker 1 hoping the next person who saw it

Speaker 1 would be likewise inspired.

Speaker 1 I stood back

Speaker 1 and whispered her instructions for living a life.

Speaker 1 She wrote,

Speaker 1 Pay attention,

Speaker 1 be amazed,

Speaker 1 tell about it,

Speaker 1 sweet dreams.