Autumn at the Inn, Part 4

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Speaker 1 You know those days when your brain just won't cooperate? When you're staring at your to-do list, hopping from call to call, and the mental fog just gets thicker?

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Speaker 1 That's code nothingmuch at naturesunshine.com.

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 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 Wittersim.

Speaker 1 We give to a different charity each week, and this week we are giving to Forever Home Dog Rescue. They rescue dogs in need and help them find their forever homes.

Speaker 1 You can learn more about them in our show notes.

Speaker 1 I'd like to thank some recent premium subscribers.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Zara. Thanks, Rosie and Carl.

Speaker 1 Thank you, Andrew. Thanks, Alyssa.

Speaker 1 A dime a day keeps bad dreams away.

Speaker 1 Ad-free, bonus, and our super long nine-hour episodes are waiting for you. Click subscribe in Spotify or Apple or go to nothingmuchhappens.com.

Speaker 1 Since every episode is someone's first, I'd like to say a bit about how and why this works. Our brains benefit from a bit of engagement at bedtime.

Speaker 1 That's why we can often fall asleep when we're watching TV or reading a book, but in the quiet, after all of that's put away, we struggle. And the type of content you use to engage matters.

Speaker 1 My stories are intentionally created to build a long-term habit of mindfulness and a short-term result of excellent sleep.

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

Speaker 1 It's brain training, so give it some time to work. The more you use it, the quicker you'll fall and return to sleep.

Speaker 1 Our story tonight is called Autumn at the Inn, part four.

Speaker 1 And for now, it's the last in this series. It's a story about a new routine that heals as it unfolds.
A morning cup of tea. drunk from a window seat on the second floor.

Speaker 1 A room full of interesting objects and stories waiting to be heard. It's also about an arm full of letters, a bike ride through falling leaves, and stepping into something new to find yourself again.

Speaker 1 Now snuggle down into your sheets and get comfortable. Maybe you've been waiting for this moment all day.

Speaker 1 Well, it's here now,

Speaker 1 and nothing else is needed from you.

Speaker 1 You have done enough

Speaker 1 for the day.

Speaker 1 Take a slow, deep breath in through your nose

Speaker 1 and sigh from your mouth.

Speaker 1 Again, breathe in

Speaker 1 and out.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 Autumn at the Inn.

Speaker 1 Part 4

Speaker 1 After a few days at the inn,

Speaker 1 I'd settled into a routine.

Speaker 1 I'd wake up after my room was already full of sunlight

Speaker 1 to the gentle scratch of Sycamore pawing at the door,

Speaker 1 ready to get out and to his kiddie business.

Speaker 1 Then I'd make a cup of tea from the kettle in my room and curl up on the window seat

Speaker 1 to take in the view and slowly come to life.

Speaker 1 I noticed that the family of mallard ducks on the lake

Speaker 1 had one white farm duck in their midst

Speaker 1 and I looked for him each morning

Speaker 1 checking that the family was all together

Speaker 1 letting out a sigh over the steam of my teacup once I spotted him

Speaker 1 then I'd dress in jeans and a sweater

Speaker 1 and tromp down to the main floor of the inn

Speaker 1 I often stopped on the landing halfway down.

Speaker 1 There was a window there,

Speaker 1 looking out over the front drive,

Speaker 1 and I'd try to judge if the trees across the way

Speaker 1 had shifted a shade or two since the day before.

Speaker 1 Down in the entryway,

Speaker 1 I'd take a copy of the village village paper from beside the front door,

Speaker 1 greet a few of my fellow guests,

Speaker 1 and make my way down the long hallway

Speaker 1 to the back porch where breakfast was served.

Speaker 1 It was cool on the porch,

Speaker 1 but the fresh morning air was so crisp and delicious, I always looked forward

Speaker 1 to settling into my seat.

Speaker 1 On that first morning,

Speaker 1 I'd picked a small table at the far end of the porch.

Speaker 1 Not because I was shy or desperate for privacy, though there is as much of that as one could want here.

Speaker 1 But because I wanted a spot in the corner where I had a sort of panoramic view

Speaker 1 from the water to the woods.

Speaker 1 Now it had become my spot.

Speaker 1 And this morning, when I sat in it and flipped my coffee cup over in its saucer,

Speaker 1 a signal that I'd learned meant

Speaker 1 fill her up, please.

Speaker 1 The innkeeper swept over with a carafe

Speaker 1 and began to pour

Speaker 1 From the pocket on her apron,

Speaker 1 she took out a few packets of the raw sugar I liked

Speaker 1 and set them beside the cup.

Speaker 1 Big day,

Speaker 1 I said.

Speaker 1 She nodded and smiled easily.

Speaker 1 She didn't seem worried or run off her feet.

Speaker 1 Today was the opening of an exhibit in the ballroom on the second floor

Speaker 1 that over the last few days I'd learned all about.

Speaker 1 It seems for decades

Speaker 1 a hidden room had sat shut up in the inn,

Speaker 1 just off the library, in fact.

Speaker 1 It had gone undiscovered,

Speaker 1 even by the innkeeper herself,

Speaker 1 until the night of the All Hollows ball,

Speaker 1 almost a year before.

Speaker 1 It wasn't quite clear to me how she'd finally stumbled upon it

Speaker 1 but when she did

Speaker 1 she found it was full of journals and artifacts that hadn't been seen or handled in years.

Speaker 1 For the last few months

Speaker 1 she'd been putting them together as a collection of local history for the public to enjoy.

Speaker 1 And to night,

Speaker 1 at five on the dot,

Speaker 1 the doors of the ballroom would open

Speaker 1 and we could all take a small trip back in time.

Speaker 1 I'd met several other guests who'd booked their rooms here for this week especially

Speaker 1 so that they could see the exhibit.

Speaker 1 And while I hadn't known anything about it when I'd made my own reservation,

Speaker 1 I was no less excited.

Speaker 1 The innkeeper told me one morning as she served me a dish of baked maple oatmeal and toast with apple butter

Speaker 1 that the things she'd found in that room weren't tied to some great

Speaker 1 epic mystery or anything,

Speaker 1 that they were rather

Speaker 1 a sort of archive of daily life.

Speaker 1 that they'd been collected by her predecessor,

Speaker 1 an earlier innkeeper,

Speaker 1 who'd not just kept the inn,

Speaker 1 she kept the stories of many people who'd passed through it.

Speaker 1 Each morning, as she poured coffee and set plates down in front of me,

Speaker 1 she told me a bit more

Speaker 1 about the items that would be on display.

Speaker 1 There were apple-picking baskets

Speaker 1 that were hand-woven from ash splints soaked in water till they were pliable,

Speaker 1 with handles made of steam-bent hickory.

Speaker 1 I knew that there was a collection of dance cards from village socials,

Speaker 1 and that she'd been able to trace a few names on them to show where the dancers had ended up,

Speaker 1 who they'd married, or where they lived.

Speaker 1 And there was a good bit of art

Speaker 1 children's drawings,

Speaker 1 sketches on the back of grocery lists,

Speaker 1 designs on play programs,

Speaker 1 and some beautiful photography of familiar sights around town.

Speaker 1 Just as I was stirring the raw sugar into my coffee, Cheff carried a large tray

Speaker 1 of baked goods up from the inn's kitchen and out on to the porch.

Speaker 1 The innkeeper watched them settle it down on to a stand by the door

Speaker 1 and asked if I wanted a piece of coffee cake or

Speaker 1 a pecan sticky bun or a slice of pumpkin tea cake.

Speaker 1 Having tasted so many of Chef's delicious creations,

Speaker 1 I knew I didn't want to limit myself and I asked

Speaker 1 if there might be a sampler option.

Speaker 1 She chuckled and bustled off to gather the plates.

Speaker 1 The next part of my daily routine,

Speaker 1 after I ate,

Speaker 1 was to venture out and explore,

Speaker 1 and with the benefit of a bountiful baked breakfast,

Speaker 1 I was ready to see what the autumn world held for me.

Speaker 1 I packed my journal into my bag

Speaker 1 and stopped to poke my head into the front office.

Speaker 1 I noticed a stack of letters and postcards in the inn's outbox

Speaker 1 and asked if I could drop them off at the mailbox on the corner for her.

Speaker 1 She thanked me

Speaker 1 and asked if I was heading into town.

Speaker 1 I said that I was.

Speaker 1 Did she need anything?

Speaker 1 She told me that the bookshop owner had called. The novel she'd ordered was in.

Speaker 1 Would I mind picking it up?

Speaker 1 I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 As I pulled the front door shut behind me,

Speaker 1 kicked through the falling leaves on the drive,

Speaker 1 a bundle of letters under my arm,

Speaker 1 and a chore to do for someone who by now

Speaker 1 felt like a friend.

Speaker 1 I was so glad I'd made this trip.

Speaker 1 I'd started off by thinking

Speaker 1 I just needed some time off,

Speaker 1 some fresh air,

Speaker 1 and a break from the daily grind.

Speaker 1 But I thought now that

Speaker 1 what had been missing from my days,

Speaker 1 what I'd been burnt out by the lack of,

Speaker 1 were the small moments of ordinary life

Speaker 1 that I seemed to feel more deeply here.

Speaker 1 A bike ride under falling leaves,

Speaker 1 a meal on the porch,

Speaker 1 a spoonful of sugar,

Speaker 1 a duck spotted in the water,

Speaker 1 an apple basket,

Speaker 1 a postcard.

Speaker 1 When I paused,

Speaker 1 when I took time to savor these things,

Speaker 1 I found they equaled more

Speaker 1 than the sum of their parts.

Speaker 1 I wasn't wasn't ready to go home yet

Speaker 1 And when I did, I was starting to think it would

Speaker 1 just be to pack up the plants and make bigger plans.

Speaker 1 But wherever I ended up,

Speaker 1 I would take with me

Speaker 1 the rhythm of these days.

Speaker 1 I would make it my own.

Speaker 1 Autumn at the Inn.

Speaker 1 Part 4

Speaker 1 After a few days at the inn,

Speaker 1 I'd settled into a routine.

Speaker 1 I'd wake

Speaker 1 after my room

Speaker 1 was already full of sunlight

Speaker 1 to the gentle scratch

Speaker 1 of Sycamore

Speaker 1 pawing at the door,

Speaker 1 ready to get out

Speaker 1 and to his kiddie business.

Speaker 1 Then I'd make a cup of tea

Speaker 1 from the kettle in my room

Speaker 1 and curl up on the window seat

Speaker 1 to take in the view

Speaker 1 and slowly

Speaker 1 come to life.

Speaker 1 I noticed that the family of mallard ducks on the lake

Speaker 1 had one white farm duck in their midst,

Speaker 1 and I looked for him each morning,

Speaker 1 checking that the family

Speaker 1 was all together,

Speaker 1 letting out a sigh

Speaker 1 over the steam of my teacup once I spotted him.

Speaker 1 Then I'd dress

Speaker 1 in jeans and a sweater

Speaker 1 and tromp down to the main floor of the inn.

Speaker 1 I often stopped on the landing halfway down.

Speaker 1 There was a window looking out over the front drive,

Speaker 1 and I'd try to judge if the trees across the way

Speaker 1 had shifted a shade or two

Speaker 1 since the day before.

Speaker 1 Down in the entryway,

Speaker 1 I'd take a copy of the village paper

Speaker 1 from beside the front door,

Speaker 1 greet a few of my fellow guests,

Speaker 1 and make my way down the long hall

Speaker 1 to the back porch

Speaker 1 where breakfast was served.

Speaker 1 It was cool on the porch,

Speaker 1 but the fresh morning air was so crisp and delicious

Speaker 1 I always looked forward to settling in to my seat.

Speaker 1 On that first morning,

Speaker 1 I picked a small table

Speaker 1 at the far end of the porch,

Speaker 1 not because I was shy or

Speaker 1 desperate for privacy,

Speaker 1 though there is as much of that

Speaker 1 as one could want here,

Speaker 1 but because I wanted a spot in the corner

Speaker 1 where I had a sort of panoramic view

Speaker 1 from the water to the woods.

Speaker 1 Now it become

Speaker 1 my spot

Speaker 1 And this morning, when I sat in it

Speaker 1 and flipped my coffee cup over in its saucer,

Speaker 1 a signal that I'd learned meant

Speaker 1 fill her up, please

Speaker 1 the innkeeper swept over

Speaker 1 with a carafe

Speaker 1 and began to pour.

Speaker 1 From the pocket on her apron,

Speaker 1 she took out a few packets of the raw sugar I liked

Speaker 1 and set them beside my cup.

Speaker 1 Big day,

Speaker 1 I said.

Speaker 1 She nodded and smiled easily.

Speaker 1 She didn't seem worried or run off her feet.

Speaker 1 Today was the opening of an exhibit in the ballroom on the second floor

Speaker 1 that,

Speaker 1 over the last few days,

Speaker 1 I'd learned all about.

Speaker 1 For decades,

Speaker 1 it seems a hidden room

Speaker 1 had sat shut up in the inn,

Speaker 1 just off the library, in fact.

Speaker 1 It had gone undiscovered,

Speaker 1 even by the innkeeper herself,

Speaker 1 until the night of the All Hallows Ball,

Speaker 1 almost a year before.

Speaker 1 It wasn't quite clear to me

Speaker 1 how she'd finally stumbled upon it.

Speaker 1 But when she did,

Speaker 1 she found it was full of journals and artifacts

Speaker 1 that hadn't been seen or handled in years.

Speaker 1 For the last few months, she'd been putting them together as a collection of local history

Speaker 1 for the public to enjoy.

Speaker 1 And to night,

Speaker 1 at five on the dot,

Speaker 1 the doors of the ballroom would open

Speaker 1 and we could all take a small trip back in time.

Speaker 1 I'd met several other guests who'd booked their rooms here

Speaker 1 for this week, especially

Speaker 1 so that they could see the exhibit.

Speaker 1 And while I hadn't known anything about it,

Speaker 1 when I'd made my own reservation,

Speaker 1 I was no less excited.

Speaker 1 Each morning,

Speaker 1 as she poured coffee

Speaker 1 and sent plates down in front of me,

Speaker 1 she told me a bit more

Speaker 1 about the items that would be on display.

Speaker 1 There were apple-picking baskets

Speaker 1 that were hand-woven

Speaker 1 from ash splints,

Speaker 1 soaked in water till they were pliable,

Speaker 1 with handles made of steam-bent hickory.

Speaker 1 I knew that there was a collection of dance cards

Speaker 1 from village socials,

Speaker 1 and that she'd been able to trace

Speaker 1 a few names on them

Speaker 1 to show where the dancers had ended up,

Speaker 1 who they'd married,

Speaker 1 or where they lived.

Speaker 1 There was a good bit of art as well,

Speaker 1 children's drawings,

Speaker 1 sketches on the back of grocery lists,

Speaker 1 designs on play programs,

Speaker 1 and some beautiful photography

Speaker 1 of familiar sights around town.

Speaker 1 Just as I was stirring the raw sugar into my coffee,

Speaker 1 chef carried a large tray of baked goods up from the inn's kitchen

Speaker 1 and out onto the porch.

Speaker 1 The innkeeper watched them settle it down onto a stand

Speaker 1 and asked if I wanted a piece of coffee cake

Speaker 1 or

Speaker 1 a pecan sticky bun

Speaker 1 or a slice of pumpkin tea cake.

Speaker 1 Having tasted so many of Chef's delicious creations,

Speaker 1 I knew I didn't want to limit myself

Speaker 1 and asked if there might be a sampler option.

Speaker 1 She chuckled

Speaker 1 and bustled off to gather the plates.

Speaker 1 The next part

Speaker 1 of my daily routine

Speaker 1 after I ate

Speaker 1 was to venture out

Speaker 1 to explore

Speaker 1 and with the benefit of a bountiful baked breakfast

Speaker 1 I was ready to see what the autumn world held for me

Speaker 1 I packed my journal into my bag

Speaker 1 and stopped to poke my head

Speaker 1 into the the front office.

Speaker 1 I noticed a stack of letters

Speaker 1 and postcards in the inn's outbox

Speaker 1 and asked if I could drop them off

Speaker 1 at the mailbox on the corner for her.

Speaker 1 She thanked me

Speaker 1 and asked if I was headed into town.

Speaker 1 I said that I was.

Speaker 1 Did she need anything?

Speaker 1 She told me the bookshop owner had called.

Speaker 1 The novel she'd ordered was in.

Speaker 1 Would I mind picking it up?

Speaker 1 I wouldn't.

Speaker 1 as I pulled the front door shut behind me

Speaker 1 and kicked through the falling leaves on the drive

Speaker 1 a bundle of letters under my arm

Speaker 1 and a chore to do

Speaker 1 for someone

Speaker 1 who by now

Speaker 1 felt like a friend.

Speaker 1 I was so glad

Speaker 1 I'd made this trip.

Speaker 1 I'd started off by thinking

Speaker 1 I just needed

Speaker 1 some time off,

Speaker 1 some fresh air,

Speaker 1 and a break from the daily grind.

Speaker 1 But I thought now

Speaker 1 that what had been missing from my days before,

Speaker 1 what I'd been burnt out by the lack of,

Speaker 1 were the small moments of ordinary life

Speaker 1 that I seemed to feel more deeply here.

Speaker 1 A bike ride

Speaker 1 under falling leaves,

Speaker 1 a meal

Speaker 1 on the porch,

Speaker 1 a spoonful of sugar,

Speaker 1 a duck spotted in the water,

Speaker 1 an apple basket,

Speaker 1 a postcard.

Speaker 1 When I paused,

Speaker 1 when I took time

Speaker 1 to savor these things,

Speaker 1 I found that they equaled more than the sum of their parts.

Speaker 1 I wasn't ready to go home yet,

Speaker 1 and when I did,

Speaker 1 I was starting to think

Speaker 1 it would just be

Speaker 1 to pack up the plants

Speaker 1 and make bigger plans.

Speaker 1 But wherever I ended up,

Speaker 1 I would take with me

Speaker 1 the rhythm of these days.

Speaker 1 I would make it my own.

Speaker 1 Sweet dreams.