Sleeping Weather (Encore)

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Speaker 1 Welcome to Bedtime Stories for Everyone,

Speaker 1 in which

Speaker 1 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 all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens.

Speaker 1 Audio Engineering is by Bob Wittersheim.

Speaker 1 We are bringing you an encore episode tonight, meaning that this story originally aired at some point in the past. It could have been recorded with different equipment in a different location.

Speaker 1 And since I'm a person and not a computer, I sometimes sound just slightly different.

Speaker 1 But the stories are always soothing and family friendly. And our wishes for you are always deep rest and sweet dreams.
Now,

Speaker 1 I'm about to tell you a bedtime story. to help you relax and drift off to sleep.

Speaker 1 The story is simple and not much happens in it.

Speaker 1 And that's kind of the idea.

Speaker 1 It's just a cozy place to rest your mind.

Speaker 1 I'll read the story twice, and I'll go a little bit slower the second time through.

Speaker 1 If you find yourself still awake at the end of the second telling,

Speaker 1 don't worry.

Speaker 1 That's how it goes sometimes.

Speaker 1 Relax.

Speaker 1 Walk yourself back through whatever bits of the story you can remember.

Speaker 1 Lean into them.

Speaker 1 And before you know it,

Speaker 1 you'll be waking up tomorrow feeling refreshed and calm.

Speaker 1 This is a kind of brain training.

Speaker 1 We're training your brain to follow along with the shape of the story, like an upturned leaf floats along on the surface of a river.

Speaker 1 Each time you use a story to settle your mind, it will happen more quickly and with more ease.

Speaker 1 So have some patience if you're new to this.

Speaker 1 Our story tonight is called Sleeping Weather.

Speaker 1 And it's a story about a break from the heat and humidity.

Speaker 1 It's also about about the view from the porch swing at night.

Speaker 1 Deer walking quietly through the cornfields

Speaker 1 and clearing your mind with paper and pen at the end of the day.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 it's time to settle in.

Speaker 1 Turn off your light,

Speaker 1 put down all of your devices,

Speaker 1 stretch deep into your sheets and settle yourself into your favorite sleeping position.

Speaker 1 I'll be here reading even after you've fallen asleep,

Speaker 1 and I'll keep watch all night.

Speaker 1 You are done for today.

Speaker 1 You have done everything that you needed to.

Speaker 1 And now

Speaker 1 it's time for sleep.

Speaker 1 Take a slow breath in through your nose

Speaker 1 and sigh it out of your mouth.

Speaker 1 Nice. Let's do that again.
Deep breath in

Speaker 1 out with sound.

Speaker 1 Good

Speaker 1 Sleeping weather.

Speaker 1 The last few nights were stuffy.

Speaker 1 Even with the windows open

Speaker 1 and the curtains drawn back,

Speaker 1 it was as if I couldn't convince any of the cool night air to push its way through the screens.

Speaker 1 The overhead fan helped a bit,

Speaker 1 but I tossed and turned,

Speaker 1 kicking the sheets off when the heat overwhelmed me,

Speaker 1 and then reaching for them ten minutes later, when

Speaker 1 I hadn't exactly cooled down, but wanted their comfort.

Speaker 1 After a dozen years or so

Speaker 1 of living in this old farmhouse,

Speaker 1 I'd been through plenty of sultry summers,

Speaker 1 and I knew how to navigate the warm days.

Speaker 1 Early in the morning, I'd open everything up.

Speaker 1 While my coffee was brewing, I'd climb the creaky front staircase to the bedrooms

Speaker 1 and open each window,

Speaker 1 then do the same in the lower level.

Speaker 1 I'd prop open the big front door with the crumbling brick I'd dug out of the garden a few years ago.

Speaker 1 The mornings out here tended to be cool,

Speaker 1 the dew not burning off until late morning.

Speaker 1 So I'd air the house out while I ate breakfast and did the first of my morning chores.

Speaker 1 Then, when the sun rose high enough

Speaker 1 to shine on the kitchen windows,

Speaker 1 I'd diligently go room to room

Speaker 1 and close it all up again.

Speaker 1 I'd pull down the blinds and draw the curtains tight

Speaker 1 in any spots where I knew the sunlight would be able to work through the leafy canopy of tree branches above us.

Speaker 1 And for the most part,

Speaker 1 the house would stay cool all day.

Speaker 1 I might get a little warm if I made dinner on the stove or heated up the oven,

Speaker 1 which meant I cooked out as much as I could.

Speaker 1 Before bed, I'd step out onto the wide front porch in my pajamas

Speaker 1 and sit on the swing.

Speaker 1 Before I'd moved to this house,

Speaker 1 I'd spent most of my life in a city,

Speaker 1 and I guess I'd expected the countryside to be quiet in comparison.

Speaker 1 But I often laughed at just how loud it was out on the porch.

Speaker 1 I mean,

Speaker 1 a good kind of loud, but loud.

Speaker 1 Crickets, june bugs, bullfrogs,

Speaker 1 songbirds, and ducks.

Speaker 1 And when a storm blew through,

Speaker 1 the open fields gave it nothing to buffer against,

Speaker 1 and the winds were electrifyingly strong and loud.

Speaker 1 The rain came down heavy,

Speaker 1 and thunder echoed for miles.

Speaker 1 All of that drew me out to the porch swing each night.

Speaker 1 I'd sit back

Speaker 1 and press my toes against the wooden floorboards

Speaker 1 and swing

Speaker 1 and listen.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I brought my book,

Speaker 1 though I often found myself distracted

Speaker 1 by the changing color of the sky

Speaker 1 at sunset,

Speaker 1 or skeins of geese crossing the horizon.

Speaker 1 In fact, porch time was perfect for picture books or recipe books.

Speaker 1 Books I could look at for a few moments,

Speaker 1 then rest my finger on the page

Speaker 1 and get lost in the view of the meadow for a while.

Speaker 1 The corn out in the far field was so high

Speaker 1 that sometimes I could only make out the points of antlers in the dusk

Speaker 1 moving above the silk of the cobs,

Speaker 1 and I would try to imagine how many were in the herd.

Speaker 1 A few does brought their babies to sit in shady spots in my flower garden during the day,

Speaker 1 and they had grown used to me.

Speaker 1 I chatted to them while I pulled weeds and watched as they grew over the summer.

Speaker 1 They might be out there now,

Speaker 1 picking through the fields

Speaker 1 and getting ready for autumn.

Speaker 1 The last few nights,

Speaker 1 even when the temperature dropped in the evening,

Speaker 1 the humidity had stayed,

Speaker 1 and the house had been stuffy and hot.

Speaker 1 And I'd woken again and again,

Speaker 1 But to night was shaping up to be altogether different.

Speaker 1 The humidity was dropping. The stickiness that had made my limbs feel heavy and weary

Speaker 1 was gone.

Speaker 1 The air was light and cool.

Speaker 1 It had been the talk of the countryside, in fact.

Speaker 1 We all read our farmers' almanacs diligently,

Speaker 1 watched the weather veins on our roof ridges,

Speaker 1 and checked our barometers at least twice a day.

Speaker 1 It was just part of living out in the open farmland

Speaker 1 And twice to day, once at the mailbox, as a neighbor pulled up beside me to chat,

Speaker 1 and once at the feed store,

Speaker 1 a few of us gathered around the checkout desk,

Speaker 1 I'd heard the same words

Speaker 1 Good sleeping weather.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 1 we all agreed.

Speaker 1 To night we would have good sleeping weather.

Speaker 1 And tonight, out on the porch,

Speaker 1 as the sun was setting and the dusk getting thicker,

Speaker 1 I brought my journal out to the swing.

Speaker 1 I struck a match

Speaker 1 and lit the candle and the glass lantern on the table beside me.

Speaker 1 I would set myself up for the the best night of sleep I could.

Speaker 1 And I often found that

Speaker 1 if I wrote in my journal for a few minutes,

Speaker 1 I could

Speaker 1 offload a lot of pesky, unimportant thoughts

Speaker 1 that might otherwise weigh on my mind.

Speaker 1 It was a habit I'd started years ago,

Speaker 1 Often before a big moment,

Speaker 1 I'd write first,

Speaker 1 before a big test, a phone call,

Speaker 1 when I had a decision to make,

Speaker 1 or even just something pure to enjoy.

Speaker 1 It gave me space.

Speaker 1 I wouldn't allow my mind to edit at all.

Speaker 1 Any thought thought that flickered through my neurons

Speaker 1 just went through the pen and onto the page,

Speaker 1 and a lot of it came out as utter nonsense.

Speaker 1 Stream of consciousness boulder dash,

Speaker 1 strange intrusive thoughts,

Speaker 1 worries about things that never in a million years would happen,

Speaker 1 Ideas I didn't even recognize or understand

Speaker 1 myself.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 that's okay.

Speaker 1 That was the point, actually

Speaker 1 to clear the static that wasn't me

Speaker 1 and leave space for what was.

Speaker 1 At first I'd been embarrassed of the pages,

Speaker 1 even though no one ever saw them,

Speaker 1 and I would rip them up and throw them away,

Speaker 1 or in my dramatic younger years, burn them on a bonfire.

Speaker 1 I was more comfortable now with my own strangeness,

Speaker 1 as years had taught me that we are all strange,

Speaker 1 every one of us.

Speaker 1 So then,

Speaker 1 I guess none of us are.

Speaker 1 Now I just closed the book when I felt like I had drained the reservoir.

Speaker 1 I'd never even considered going back to look at what I'd written the day before.

Speaker 1 I wrote beside the lantern,

Speaker 1 the fields thrumming with insects and breeze.

Speaker 1 And when I was done, I clicked my pen decisively closed,

Speaker 1 shut the book, and stood.

Speaker 1 I stretched my back

Speaker 1 and took a few deep breaths,

Speaker 1 then leant over to blow out the candle.

Speaker 1 Inside, I pulled the door shut and locked it behind me,

Speaker 1 then walked through the dark house.

Speaker 1 I knew every inch of it by now,

Speaker 1 and could feel my way easily up the stairs to my room.

Speaker 1 Tonight I would sleep the sleep I'd been craving for days,

Speaker 1 that thick,

Speaker 1 dreamless sleep

Speaker 1 that lasts the whole night.

Speaker 1 Sleeping weather

Speaker 1 The last few nights were stuffy,

Speaker 1 even with the windows open

Speaker 1 and the curtains drawn back.

Speaker 1 It was as if I couldn't convince any of the cool night air

Speaker 1 to push its way through the screens.

Speaker 1 The overhead fan helped a bit,

Speaker 1 but

Speaker 1 I'd tossed and turned,

Speaker 1 kicking the sheets off when the heat overwhelmed me,

Speaker 1 and then reaching for them ten minutes later,

Speaker 1 when I hadn't exactly cooled down,

Speaker 1 but wanted their comfort

Speaker 1 after a dozen years or so

Speaker 1 of living in this old farmhouse,

Speaker 1 I'd been through plenty of sultry summers,

Speaker 1 and I knew how to navigate the warm days.

Speaker 1 Early in the morning

Speaker 1 I'd open

Speaker 1 everything up

Speaker 1 while my coffee was brewing.

Speaker 1 I'd climb the creaky front staircase to the bedrooms

Speaker 1 and open each window.

Speaker 1 Then do the same in the lower level.

Speaker 1 I'd prop open the big front door

Speaker 1 with the crumbling brick I'd dug out of the garden a few years ago.

Speaker 1 The mornings out here

Speaker 1 tended to be cool,

Speaker 1 the dew not burning off

Speaker 1 until late morning.

Speaker 1 So I'd air the house out

Speaker 1 while I ate breakfast

Speaker 1 and did the first of my morning chores.

Speaker 1 Then

Speaker 1 when the sun rose high enough to shine on the kitchen windows,

Speaker 1 I'd diligently go room to room

Speaker 1 and close it all up again.

Speaker 1 I'd pull down the blinds

Speaker 1 and draw the curtains tight

Speaker 1 in any spot where I knew the sunlight

Speaker 1 would be able to work through the leafy canopy

Speaker 1 of tree branches above us,

Speaker 1 and for the most part,

Speaker 1 the house would stay cool all day.

Speaker 1 It might get a little warm if I made dinner on the stove

Speaker 1 or heated up the oven,

Speaker 1 which meant I cooked out as much as I could.

Speaker 1 Before bed,

Speaker 1 I'd step out onto the wide front porch

Speaker 1 in my pajamas

Speaker 1 and sit on the swing.

Speaker 1 Before I'd moved to this house,

Speaker 1 I'd spent most of my life

Speaker 1 in a city

Speaker 1 and I guess I'd expected the countryside

Speaker 1 to be quiet in comparison.

Speaker 1 But I often laughed at just how loud it was out on the porch.

Speaker 1 I mean

Speaker 1 a good kind of loud

Speaker 1 but loud

Speaker 1 crickets,

Speaker 1 june bugs,

Speaker 1 bullfrogs,

Speaker 1 songbirds, and ducks

Speaker 1 And when a storm blew through

Speaker 1 the open fields gave it nothing to buffer against

Speaker 1 And the winds were electrifyingly strong

Speaker 1 and loud.

Speaker 1 The rain came down heavy,

Speaker 1 and thunder echoed for miles.

Speaker 1 All of that drew me out to the porch swing each night.

Speaker 1 I'd sit back

Speaker 1 and press my toes against the wooden floorboards

Speaker 1 and swing

Speaker 1 and listen.

Speaker 1 Sometimes I brought my book,

Speaker 1 though I often found myself distracted

Speaker 1 by the changing color of the sky at sunset,

Speaker 1 or skeins of geese crossing the horizon.

Speaker 1 In fact, porch time

Speaker 1 was perfect for picture books

Speaker 1 or recipe books

Speaker 1 books I could look at for a few moments,

Speaker 1 then rest my finger on the page,

Speaker 1 and get lost in the view of the meadow for a while.

Speaker 1 The corn out in the far field was so high that

Speaker 1 sometimes I could only make out the points of antlers in the dusk

Speaker 1 moving above the silk of the cobs

Speaker 1 and I would try to imagine

Speaker 1 how many were in the herd.

Speaker 1 A few does

Speaker 1 brought their babies to sit

Speaker 1 in shady spots in my flower garden during the day,

Speaker 1 when they had grown used to me,

Speaker 1 I chatted to them while I pulled weeds

Speaker 1 and watched as they grew over the summer.

Speaker 1 They might be out there now,

Speaker 1 picking through the fields

Speaker 1 and getting ready for autumn.

Speaker 1 The last few nights,

Speaker 1 even when the temperature dropped in the evening,

Speaker 1 the humidity had stayed,

Speaker 1 and the house had been stuffy

Speaker 1 and hot,

Speaker 1 and I'd woken again and again.

Speaker 1 But tonight

Speaker 1 was shaping up to be

Speaker 1 altogether different.

Speaker 1 The humidity was dropping.

Speaker 1 The stickiness that had made my limbs feel heavy

Speaker 1 and weary

Speaker 1 was gone.

Speaker 1 The air was light and cool.

Speaker 1 It had been the talk of the countryside, in fact.

Speaker 1 We all read our farmers' almanacs diligently,

Speaker 1 watched the weather veins on our roof ridges,

Speaker 1 and checked our barometers at least twice a day.

Speaker 1 It was just part of living

Speaker 1 in the open farmland.

Speaker 1 And twice today,

Speaker 1 once at the mailbox,

Speaker 1 as a neighbor pulled up beside me to chat,

Speaker 1 and once at the feed store,

Speaker 1 a few of us gathered around the checkout desk.

Speaker 1 I'd heard the same words.

Speaker 1 Good sleeping weather.

Speaker 1 Yes,

Speaker 1 we all agreed.

Speaker 1 Tonight,

Speaker 1 we would have good sleeping weather.

Speaker 1 Out on the porch,

Speaker 1 as the sun was setting,

Speaker 1 and the dusk getting thicker,

Speaker 1 I brought my journal out to the swing.

Speaker 1 I struck a match

Speaker 1 and lit the candle and the glass lantern on the table beside me.

Speaker 1 I would set myself up

Speaker 1 for the best night of sleep I could.

Speaker 1 And I often found

Speaker 1 that

Speaker 1 if I wrote in my journal

Speaker 1 for a few minutes,

Speaker 1 I could offload a lot of pesky, unimportant thoughts

Speaker 1 that might otherwise

Speaker 1 weigh on my mind.

Speaker 1 It was a habit I'd started years ago

Speaker 1 before

Speaker 1 any big moment.

Speaker 1 I'd write first,

Speaker 1 before a big test, or a phone call,

Speaker 1 when I had a decision to make,

Speaker 1 or even just

Speaker 1 something pure

Speaker 1 to enjoy

Speaker 1 it gave me space

Speaker 1 I wouldn't allow my mind to edit at all

Speaker 1 any thought that flickered through my neurons

Speaker 1 just went through the pen

Speaker 1 and onto the page

Speaker 1 And a lot of it came out as

Speaker 1 utter nonsense.

Speaker 1 Stream of consciousness boulder dash.

Speaker 1 Strange, intrusive thoughts.

Speaker 1 Worries about things that

Speaker 1 never in a million years would happen.

Speaker 1 Ideas I didn't even recognize or understand myself.

Speaker 1 But

Speaker 1 that's okay.

Speaker 1 That was the point,

Speaker 1 actually.

Speaker 1 To clear the static that wasn't me

Speaker 1 and leave space for what was.

Speaker 1 At first I'd been embarrassed of the pages,

Speaker 1 even though no one ever saw them,

Speaker 1 and I would rip them up

Speaker 1 and throw them away,

Speaker 1 or,

Speaker 1 in my dramatic younger years,

Speaker 1 burn them on a bonfire.

Speaker 1 I was more comfortable now

Speaker 1 with my own strangeness,

Speaker 1 as years had taught me that we are all strange,

Speaker 1 every one of us.

Speaker 1 So then, I guess

Speaker 1 none of us are.

Speaker 1 Now I would just close the book when I felt like I had drained the reservoir

Speaker 1 and never even considered

Speaker 1 going back

Speaker 1 to look at what I'd written the day before.

Speaker 1 I wrote beside the lantern,

Speaker 1 the fields thrumming with insects and breeze.

Speaker 1 And when I was done,

Speaker 1 I clicked my pen decisively closed,

Speaker 1 shut the book, and stood.

Speaker 1 I stretched my back

Speaker 1 and took a few deep breaths,

Speaker 1 then leant over to blow out the candle.

Speaker 1 Inside, I pulled the door shut

Speaker 1 and locked it behind me,

Speaker 1 then walked through the dark house.

Speaker 1 I knew every inch of it by now,

Speaker 1 and could feel my way

Speaker 1 easily up the stairs to my room.

Speaker 1 Tonight I would sleep the sleep I'd been craving for days.

Speaker 1 That thick, dreamless sleep

Speaker 1 that lasts the whole night.

Speaker 1 Sweet dreams.