The Leaf House (Encore)

Speaker 1 Get more, nothing much happens with bonus episodes, extra long stories, and ad-free listening, all while supporting the show you love. Subscribe now.

Speaker 1 If you already listen to me, then you know bedtime stories can be powerful tools for rest.

Speaker 1 But sometimes, what you need isn't a story, maybe it's something a little different, and that's where sleep magic comes in.

Speaker 1 Sleep magic is a sleep hypnosis podcast hosted by hypnotherapist Jessica Porter.

Speaker 1 Instead of storytelling, Jessica uses a hypnotic voice that gradually slows down, weaving in gentle suggestions to help your mind let go. It's designed so that by the end,

Speaker 1 you're not just calmer, You're already asleep.

Speaker 1 And what's unique is that she doesn't only talk about sleep. Jessica threads in themes like dealing with heartbreak, easing anxiety, and building confidence.

Speaker 1 So the work you do while drifting off actually carries into your waking life. There are more than 300 episodes, and listeners call the show life-changing and a real gift.

Speaker 1 Over 5 million people have tuned in. And I can see why.

Speaker 1 So if you're curious to try a different approach, one that complements what you already get here, subscribe to Sleep Magic, wherever you listen to podcasts.

Speaker 1 Just search Sleep Magic and start listening for free today.

Speaker 1 If you've been listening to me for a while, you know how much I value rest. Sleep is really the foundation for everything else we do, our creativity, our relationships, our mood.

Speaker 1 And like you, I've had stretches where sleep just didn't come easily. And that's why I want to share something that's made a difference for me.
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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.

Speaker 1 Now,

Speaker 1 I'm about to tell you a bedtime story.

Speaker 1 It's simple, and not much happens in it. And that is the idea.

Speaker 1 The story is a soft place to rest your mind.

Speaker 1 A simple and pleasant way to occupy it, so that it doesn't wander away and keep you up.

Speaker 1 All you need to do is listen.

Speaker 1 Just follow along with the sound of my voice and the simple details of the story.

Speaker 1 And soon, very soon, you'll be deeply asleep.

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

Speaker 1 If you wake in the middle of the night,

Speaker 1 you could listen again

Speaker 1 or just think your way back through any part of the story that you can remember.

Speaker 1 We are training your brain to settle and rest.

Speaker 1 And the more you do this, the better your sleep will get.

Speaker 1 Our story tonight is called

Speaker 1 The Leaf House.

Speaker 1 And it's a story about an autumn day spent working in the yard.

Speaker 1 It's also about a game remembered from childhood.

Speaker 1 A spider's web spun on a chrysanthemum.

Speaker 1 And different ways to think about home.

Speaker 1 Now, it's time.

Speaker 1 Turn off your light.

Speaker 1 Snuggle your body down into your sheets and get as comfortable as you can.

Speaker 1 Take a moment just to feel how good it is to be in bed,

Speaker 1 to be

Speaker 1 about to sleep.

Speaker 1 If you tend to clench your jaw, place the tip of your tongue at the place where your upper teeth meet the gums on the inside.

Speaker 1 This will help to keep it relaxed.

Speaker 1 Let's take a deep breath in through the nose

Speaker 1 and out through the mouth.

Speaker 1 Nice.

Speaker 1 Let's do that again.

Speaker 1 Breathe in

Speaker 1 and out.

Speaker 1 Good.

Speaker 1 The Leaf House.

Speaker 1 On a back corner of the property,

Speaker 1 built by the generation before,

Speaker 1 was a small tool shed

Speaker 1 that housed the lawnmower and the rakes and snow shovels,

Speaker 1 but looked a bit like a child's playhouse.

Speaker 1 It must have been built by someone who was as much artist as craftsperson,

Speaker 1 because it clearly hadn't come as a kit

Speaker 1 in which you slip tab B

Speaker 1 into slot L.

Speaker 1 It was made with planks of slightly mismatched wood

Speaker 1 that had been skillfully put together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.

Speaker 1 It had windows on either side of the single door,

Speaker 1 with individual panes of glass

Speaker 1 fitted into hand-smoothed glazing,

Speaker 1 and a peaked roof with a decorative barge board of twisting curly cues.

Speaker 1 In the spring,

Speaker 1 I'd repainted it its usual shade of sunny yellow,

Speaker 1 and in the summer I'd filled its small window boxes with bright pink impatience.

Speaker 1 Yesterday I'd cleared them out,

Speaker 1 setting a few small round pumpkins in their place,

Speaker 1 and hung baskets of purple mums from hooks in the overhanging roof

Speaker 1 when I stepped up to open its door today,

Speaker 1 the sunlight caught on a thin strand of spider web

Speaker 1 that stretched from the edge of the pot of flowers

Speaker 1 down to the stem of one of the pumpkins.

Speaker 1 I got lost

Speaker 1 just looking at it for a moment,

Speaker 1 marveling at the way the light bounced on the silk strand,

Speaker 1 I thought of the resourceful spider,

Speaker 1 finding these newly placed offerings,

Speaker 1 and wasting no time in setting up house.

Speaker 1 It was a cool morning, not cold,

Speaker 1 but not far from it.

Speaker 1 And as I pulled open the creaking shed door,

Speaker 1 I could see my breath in the air

Speaker 1 no matter I thought

Speaker 1 soon enough I'd be warmed through with work

Speaker 1 inside the shed I shifted aside the long-handled spades and trowels that had been center stage in the spring and summer

Speaker 1 and dug out a rake for today's work.

Speaker 1 I found a well-worn pair of garden gloves

Speaker 1 and stepped out into the air to clap them together a few times, knocking out dirt and dust.

Speaker 1 The trees were dropping leaves in a slow-motion, technicolor downpour.

Speaker 1 They still had plenty left to drop,

Speaker 1 and today was just a part of the autumn chores.

Speaker 1 But I didn't mind a bit.

Speaker 1 I was happy to have a job to do, and a sunny day to do it on.

Speaker 1 Some work is hard to gauge.

Speaker 1 You spend hours toiling,

Speaker 1 and when you step back to look at what you've done,

Speaker 1 find it difficult to mark any progress.

Speaker 1 But this kind of work,

Speaker 1 raking leaves, clearing flower beds,

Speaker 1 I knew that when I put my tools away at the end of the day,

Speaker 1 I could look across the yard

Speaker 1 and see a job well done.

Speaker 1 I carried my rake to a spot under a tall maple, whose leaves were a deep, rusty red.

Speaker 1 I started to rake,

Speaker 1 pulling layers of leaves this way and that,

Speaker 1 and making tall dry piles

Speaker 1 that smelled musky sweet and earthy as the sun shone on them.

Speaker 1 I worked away, taking breaks now and then to press my hands into the small of my back and stretch, or to take a drink of water from a mason jar I'd set on the stone path in front of the shed.

Speaker 1 I raked the leaves onto tarps

Speaker 1 and pulled them over to spread onto my vegetable garden.

Speaker 1 Later, I'd mulch them into the soil.

Speaker 1 They'd break down over the next several months, making compost for next year's planting.

Speaker 1 From the maple I worked my way over to the row of oak trees that stood along one side of the yard.

Speaker 1 These leaves were narrow,

Speaker 1 and most were a bright electric yellow,

Speaker 1 though some were tipped with red,

Speaker 1 and others were the pale, dry brown of craft paper and school lunch bags.

Speaker 1 I thought of a game we'd played as children.

Speaker 1 What had we called it?

Speaker 1 I nodded into the memory as I gathered the leaves to me.

Speaker 1 We'd called it Leaf House.

Speaker 1 I'm sure we'd been assigned the chore of raking leaves,

Speaker 1 but had turned it into a game,

Speaker 1 which,

Speaker 1 likely to my parents' consternation, hadn't cleared the yard at all,

Speaker 1 but had merely spread the leaves more artistically over the grass.

Speaker 1 We'd each stake a claim on some section of the yard and use our rakes to draw out a street that connected them.

Speaker 1 Then we'd rake away, drawing out the shape of our houses.

Speaker 1 Mine always had long corridors, with a dozen rooms leading off of them.

Speaker 1 Here was the kitchen, and I'd scrape a pile of leaves together to be the table.

Speaker 1 Here was the bedroom, and I'd rake a path around the bed.

Speaker 1 After we'd finished staking out the spaces, we'd go visiting.

Speaker 1 One of us would stand on the front doorstep of another's house and knock their hand against the bare air,

Speaker 1 thumping their foot against the ground or calling out, knock, knock, knock.

Speaker 1 Then the other would put down their book of leaves and wind their way to the front door, wondering loudly, who could that be?

Speaker 1 At some point we'd scrap the designs and build something else.

Speaker 1 A school, a grocery store, an amusement park,

Speaker 1 the game requiring more imagination as it went, but we kept up just fine.

Speaker 1 It most certainly ended with us all banding together to build the tallest pile of leaves we could manage,

Speaker 1 then taking running jumps into them and scattering them back out in every direction.

Speaker 1 My own piles were finally and mostly shifted over to the garden.

Speaker 1 In another week or two, I'd have the whole thing to do all over again.

Speaker 1 I took my rake and gloves back to the shed

Speaker 1 and sat down on the stepping stones to drink a bit more water.

Speaker 1 I thought of the little shed,

Speaker 1 built to look like a tiny home,

Speaker 1 of the spider setting up housekeeping among the mums and pumpkins,

Speaker 1 and us, as kids, scraping away the leaves to make bedrooms and kitchens.

Speaker 1 It's the first thing we play at, making homes,

Speaker 1 then something we repeat over and over.

Speaker 1 I leaned back on my hands and looked out over the cleared yard.

Speaker 1 The grass, for now, was still green.

Speaker 1 The leaves were spread out over the bare soil.

Speaker 1 and I thought of the insects

Speaker 1 who were probably right now

Speaker 1 burrowing down under them.

Speaker 1 The birds who'd been making V's in the sky as the day got colder,

Speaker 1 and the deer out somewhere beyond my sight, readying for the winter.

Speaker 1 All of us pulled by the same instinct,

Speaker 1 All of us busy

Speaker 1 making a home.

Speaker 1 The leaf house

Speaker 1 on a back corner of the property

Speaker 1 built by the generation before

Speaker 1 was a small tool shed

Speaker 1 that housed the lawnmower

Speaker 1 and the rakes

Speaker 1 and snow shovels,

Speaker 1 but looked a bit like a child's playhouse.

Speaker 1 It must have been built by someone who was as much artist as craftperson

Speaker 1 because it clearly hadn't come as a kit

Speaker 1 in which you slip tab B

Speaker 1 into slot L.

Speaker 1 It was made with planks of slightly mismatched wood

Speaker 1 that had been skillfully put together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle.

Speaker 1 It had windows on either side of the single door

Speaker 1 with individual panes of glass

Speaker 1 fitted into hand-smoothed glazing,

Speaker 1 and a peaked roof

Speaker 1 with a decorative barge board

Speaker 1 of twisting curlicues.

Speaker 1 In the spring I'd repainted it, its usual shade of sunny yellow,

Speaker 1 and in the summer I'd filled its small window boxes with bright pink impatience.

Speaker 1 Yesterday, I'd cleared them out,

Speaker 1 setting a few small round pumpkins in their place,

Speaker 1 and hung baskets of purple mums

Speaker 1 from hooks in the overhanging roof.

Speaker 1 When I stepped up to open its door today,

Speaker 1 the sunlight caught on a thin strand of spider web

Speaker 1 that stretched from the edge of the pot of flowers

Speaker 1 down to the stem of one of the pumpkins.

Speaker 1 I got lost

Speaker 1 just

Speaker 1 looking at it for a moment,

Speaker 1 marveling at the way the light bounced on the silk strand.

Speaker 1 I thought of the resourceful spider

Speaker 1 finding these newly placed offerings

Speaker 1 and wasting no time in setting up house.

Speaker 1 It was a cool morning,

Speaker 1 not cold, but

Speaker 1 not far from it.

Speaker 1 And as I pulled open the creaking shed door,

Speaker 1 I could see my breath in the air.

Speaker 1 No matter, I thought

Speaker 1 soon enough, I'd be warmed through with work.

Speaker 1 Inside the shed, I shifted aside the long-handled spades and trowels that had been center stage in the spring and summer,

Speaker 1 and dug out a rake for today's work.

Speaker 1 I found a well-worn pair of garden gloves

Speaker 1 and stepped out into the air to clap them together a few times,

Speaker 1 knocking out dirt and dust.

Speaker 1 The trees were dropping leaves

Speaker 1 in a slow-motion, technicolor downpour.

Speaker 1 They still had plenty left to drop,

Speaker 1 and to day was just a part of the autumn chores.

Speaker 1 But I didn't mind a bit.

Speaker 1 I was happy to have a job to do

Speaker 1 and a sunny day to do it on.

Speaker 1 Some work is hard to gauge.

Speaker 1 You can spend hours toiling.

Speaker 1 And when you step back to look at what you've done

Speaker 1 find it difficult

Speaker 1 to mark any progress

Speaker 1 but this kind of work

Speaker 1 raking leaves

Speaker 1 clearing flower beds

Speaker 1 I knew that when I put my tools away at the end of the day,

Speaker 1 I could look across the yard

Speaker 1 and see a job well done.

Speaker 1 I carried my rake to a spot under a tall maple

Speaker 1 whose leaves were a deep, rusty red.

Speaker 1 I started to rake,

Speaker 1 pulling layers of leaves this way and that,

Speaker 1 and making tall dry piles

Speaker 1 that smelled musky sweet

Speaker 1 and earthy

Speaker 1 as the sun shone on them.

Speaker 1 I worked away,

Speaker 1 taking breaks now and then

Speaker 1 to press my hands into the small of my back

Speaker 1 and stretch

Speaker 1 or to take a drink of water from a mason jar I'd set on the stone path in front of the shed.

Speaker 1 I raked the leaves onto tarps

Speaker 1 and pulled them over to spread onto my vegetable garden.

Speaker 1 Later, I'd mulch them into the soil.

Speaker 1 They'd break down over the next several months,

Speaker 1 making compost for next year's planting.

Speaker 1 From the maple, I worked my way over to the row of oak trees that stood along one side of the yard.

Speaker 1 These leaves were narrow,

Speaker 1 and most were a bright electric yellow,

Speaker 1 though some were tipped with red,

Speaker 1 and others were the pale, dry brown of craft paper and school lunch bags.

Speaker 1 I thought of a game we'd played as children.

Speaker 1 What had we called it?

Speaker 1 I nodded into the memory as I gathered the leaves to me.

Speaker 1 We'd called it Leaf House.

Speaker 1 I'm sure we'd been assigned the chore of raking leaves,

Speaker 1 but had turned it into a game

Speaker 1 which,

Speaker 1 likely to my parents' consternation

Speaker 1 hadn't cleared the yard at all

Speaker 1 but had merely spread the leaves more artistically over the grass

Speaker 1 we'd each stake a claim on some section of the yard

Speaker 1 and use our rakes to draw out a street that connected them

Speaker 1 Then we'd rake away,

Speaker 1 drawing out the shape of our houses.

Speaker 1 Mine always had long corridors

Speaker 1 with a dozen rooms leading off them.

Speaker 1 Here was the kitchen.

Speaker 1 And I'd scrape a pile of leaves together to be the table.

Speaker 1 Here was the bedroom,

Speaker 1 and I'd rake a path around the bed.

Speaker 1 After we'd finished staking out the spaces,

Speaker 1 we'd go visiting.

Speaker 1 One of us would stand on the front doorstep of another's house

Speaker 1 and knock their hand against the bare air,

Speaker 1 thumping their foot against the ground,

Speaker 1 or calling out, knock, knock, knock.

Speaker 1 Then the other would put down their book of leaves

Speaker 1 and wind their way to the door, wondering loudly,

Speaker 1 who could that be?

Speaker 1 At some point we'd scrap the designs

Speaker 1 and build something else.

Speaker 1 A grocery store, a school,

Speaker 1 an amusement park.

Speaker 1 The game requiring more imagination as it went on.

Speaker 1 But we kept up just fine.

Speaker 1 It most certainly ended with all of us banding together

Speaker 1 to build the tallest pile of leaves we could manage,

Speaker 1 then taking running jumps into them

Speaker 1 and scattering them back out in every direction.

Speaker 1 My own piles were finally, and mostly, shifted over to the garden.

Speaker 1 In another week or two,

Speaker 1 I'd have the whole thing to do all over again.

Speaker 1 I took my rake and gloves back to the shed

Speaker 1 and sat down on the stepping stones

Speaker 1 to drink a bit more water.

Speaker 1 I thought of the little shed,

Speaker 1 built to look like a tiny home,

Speaker 1 of the spider setting up housekeeping among the mums and pumpkins

Speaker 1 and us as kids

Speaker 1 scraping away the leaves to make bedrooms and kitchens.

Speaker 1 It's the first thing we play at

Speaker 1 making homes.

Speaker 1 Then something we repeat over and over.

Speaker 1 I leaned back on my hands and looked out over the cleared yard.

Speaker 1 The grass, for now,

Speaker 1 was still green.

Speaker 1 The leaves were spread out over the bare soil,

Speaker 1 and I thought of the insects,

Speaker 1 who were probably right now

Speaker 1 burrowing down under them,

Speaker 1 the birds who'd been making Vs in the sky

Speaker 1 as the days got cooler,

Speaker 1 and the deer,

Speaker 1 out

Speaker 1 somewhere beyond my sight,

Speaker 1 readying for the winter.

Speaker 1 All of us pulled by the same instinct,

Speaker 1 all of us busy,

Speaker 1 making a home,

Speaker 1 sweet dreams.