Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep - Hyacinths

Episode Date: March 7, 2022

Our story tonight is called Hyacinths and it’s a story about a sneak peak at Spring from the tail end of Winter. It’s also about sweet potatoes and shelves full of sauces and spices, a gift given while a back is turned, and the patience that comes with a bit of hope and fresh air.So get cozy and ready to sleep.Order the book now!Purchase Our Book: https://bit.ly/Nothing-Much-HappensSee omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

Welcome to Bedtime Stories for Grownups, in which nothing much happens. You feel good, and then you fall asleep. I'm Katherine Nicolai. I write and read all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens, with audio engineering by Bob Wittersheim. Do you sometimes wonder what the village of nothing much looks like? Well, if you'd like to take a peek, you can follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter,

where I often post pictures that I swear could be taken outside the bakery, or on the innkeeper's back porch, or in Marmalade and Crumbs' favorite spot in front of the fireplace. You can hear ad-free and bonus episodes of our show at nothingmuchappens.com now i have a story to tell you and it's meant to simply be a soft landing spot for your mind a way to reroute your thoughts away from the day and toward a place that feels safe and calm and enjoyable. Let me remind you, you deserve to feel good.

If your self-care plan doesn't include enjoyment and pleasure, you're missing something fundamental. I'll read the story twice, and I'll go a little slower the second time through. Just follow along with the sound of my voice, and before you know it, probably before I'm more than a couple minutes in, you will be deeply asleep. If you wake in the middle of the night, think back through any of the details of the story that you can remember,

and you'll drop right back off. Seriously, I have been using this technique my whole life, and now I've heard from thousands of you who agree. It works. Now, turn off your light. Put away anything you've been looking at. It is time for sleep. Slide down into your sheets and get as cozy and comfortable as you can. Feel your body becoming really heavy every muscle relaxing you are exactly

where you're supposed to be right now and I'll be here reading keeping watch even after you've fallen asleep. Take a slow, deep breath in through your nose and let it out through your mouth. Again, in and out.

Good. Our story tonight is called Hyacinths, and it's a story about a sneak peek at spring from the tail end of winter. It's also about sweet potatoes and shelves full of sauces and spices, a gift given while a back is turned, and the patience that comes with a bit of hope and fresh air. Hyacinths. I'd been pushing my cart through the aisles of the grocery store,

staring up at boxes of cereal and containers of oats, when I started to feel pulled toward the bright, window-filled front of the shop. It was the scent that was drawing me. There just isn't one like it, the smell of hyacinths at the end of winter. I forgot whatever it was I'd been looking for and pushed my list back into my pocket. There were tables full of flowers. They lined the windowsill and stood in tears on the displays. And they smelled so incredibly sweet and new and undeniably of spring.

I found an out-of-the-way spot to park my cart and stepped away from it to get closer to the flowers. Some were still tightly budded. You couldn't yet pick out their color. And others were blooming in pastel pinks and yellows and bright bonny blues. All grew on sturdy stems as thick around as my thumb, and terracotta pots wrapped in pretty foil, and sometimes packaged with shiny ribbons.

I picked up one of the yellow blooming plants and stood with it in my hands as I looked out through the windows. There was a towering mound of snow that had been plowed into the back corner of the parking lot. And I thought about how those giant piles often stayed much longer than all the snow that lay on lawns and tree branches. How lasting they were. How stubborn they felt

when on some sunny day in May you'd spot one still hanging on as you drove past with your windows rolled down. How you might even wag a finger at the snow, saying, let go. I dipped my face down into the flowers and breathed deeply. It was like a vitamin I had been dangerously deficient in, suddenly flooding into my cells. I breathed again. It smelled like hope. I even liked the sound of the word and said it slowly to myself, hyacinth.

I sat down the pot and strolled around the table, looking at them all. Some were small, just a single stalk, and others had a few plants tucked in together in a medium-sized pot. Then there was a huge bowl with a dozen hyacinths or more planted in a snug circle. And I imagined them sitting in the center of a big, friendly kitchen table, perfuming a whole house for weeks. Finally, I picked out a pot with two plants whose buds were still closed.

It would be a surprise that I would look forward to each day. I'd set them in a sunny spot and wait to see what shade they would show. Then I picked out another with blossoms that were already a deep purple. They looked so perfect. They reminded me of sugar flowers crafted to decorate a cake. This one would be a gift, though I wasn't sure yet who they'd be given to. I settled them down carefully into my cart and remembered I was supposed to be grocery shopping. I took the list back out of my pocket and saw that there were just a few things left to get. I'd had a craving for sweet potatoes, roasted with paprika and topped with a runny, garlicky tahini sauce.

So I swerved through the produce section, plucking a few garnet yams from the bins, taking a handful of papery garlic bulbs from a basket and tossing in some green onions and butter lettuce just because they looked beautiful. and tossing in some green onions and butter lettuce, just because they looked beautiful. On a shelf, I found a jar of tahini, and beside it, one of harissa that I couldn't resist.

One of these days, there would be a shelf-buckling reckoning in the overflowing condiment section of my pantry, but hopefully it would not be today. At the register, I treated myself to a couple peppermint lip balms, as soon I'd be switching to my spring coat, and I firmly believed there needed to be a lip balm in the pocket of every coat I owned. I also often left a package of tissues and a few dollar bills in my coats when I put them away for the season. It was a little time capsule for the me of a few months from now to open up and smile at. The clerk helped me to wrap my flower pots in brown paper so they wouldn't spill dirt on the way home. And soon I was pushing my cart out through the front doors.

I stopped and scanned the lot in front of me. There was a man loading a couple of bags into the back of his car. He turned to see where the cart return was and found it a few rows down and on the other side. He began to push his cart, leaving the hatchback open behind him. And I saw a tiny window of possibility. I hustled my cart as unobtrusively as I could, even hopping up onto the bar at the base and riding it like I had when I was a kid. then I came to a quick halt and plunged my hand down into the sacks

and took out the purple hyacinth in its wrapping I wedged it between two bulky bags in the stranger's car, and rolled away as quickly as I could. He was still wrestling his cart into the rack when I peeked over my shoulder. And as he walked back to his car, he took his keys from his pocket and pushed a button to close the trunk. He hadn't spotted me. I smiled with my head down as I rolled toward my own car, thinking of him in 20 minutes or so, standing in his driveway,

loading the bags into his arms, and finding the flower. Maybe even checking his receipt to see if he had mistakenly bought it and not realized it at the time. And eventually giving up on the mystery and just enjoying the breath of spring. I unloaded my own bags

then buckled the flowers into the passenger seat beside me. The sun was coming out from between patchy, low clouds, and I cracked the windows just a noticed the hill of snow in the corner of the lot again, graying and icy. and rather than admonish it for holding on, I smiled and rested a hand on the pot of flowers beside me. Spring would come. No winter lasts forever. Hyacinths. I'd been pushing my cart through the aisles of the staring up at boxes of cereal and containers of oats,

when I started to feel pulled toward the bright, window-filled front of the shop. It was the scent that was drawing me. There just isn't one like it. The smell at the end of winter. I forgot whatever it was that I'd been looking for and pushed my list back into my pocket. There were tables full of flowers. They lined the windowsill and stood in tears on the display. And they smelled so incredibly sweet and new and undeniably of spring.

I found an out-of-the-way spot to park my cart and stepped away from it to get closer to the flowers. Some were still tightly budded. You couldn't pick out their color. And others were blooming in pastel pinks and yellows and bright bonny blues. grew on sturdy stems as thick around as my thumb in terracotta pots that were wrapped in pretty foil and some

packaged with shiny ribbons. I picked up one of the yellow blooming plants and stood with it in my hands as I looked out through the windows. There was a towering mound of snow that had been plowed into the back corner of the parking lot. And I thought about how those giant piles often stayed much longer than all the snow

that lay on lawns and tree branches. How lasting they were. How stubborn they felt when, on some sunny day in May, you'd spot one still hanging on as you drove past with your windows rolled down, how you might even wag a finger at the snow, saying, let go. I dipped my face down into the flowers and breathed deeply it was like a vitamin I had been dangerously deficient in

suddenly flooding into my cells. I breathed again. It smelled like hope. I even liked the sound of the word and said it slowly to myself. Hyacinth. I sat down the pot and strolled around the table, looking at them all. Some were small, just a single stalk. And others had a few plants tucked in together in a medium-sized pot. Then there was a huge bowl

with a dozen hyacinths or more planted in a snug circle. And I imagined them sitting in the center of a big, friendly kitchen table, perfuming a whole house for weeks. Finally, I picked out a pot with two plants whose buds were still closed. It would be a surprise that I would look forward to each day. I'd set them in a sunny spot and wait to see what shade they would show. Then I picked out another with blossoms that were already a deep purple. They looked so perfect.

They reminded me of sugar flowers crafted to decorate a cake. This one would be a gift, though I wasn't sure yet who they'd be given to. I settled them down carefully into my cart, and remembered I was supposed to be grocery shopping. I took the list back out of my pocket and saw that there were just a few things left to get. I'd had a craving for sweet potatoes, roasted with paprika, and topped with a runny, garlicky tahini sauce. So I swerved through the produce section, plucking a few garnet yams from the bins, taking a handful of papery garlic bulbs from a basket, and tossing in some green onions and butter lettuce, just because they looked beautiful. I found a jar of tahini, and beside it, one of harissa that I couldn't resist. One of these days, there would be a shelf-buckling reckoning

in the overflowing condiment section of my pantry. But hopefully it would not be today. At the register, I treated myself to a couple peppermint lip balms, as soon I'd be switching to my spring coat, and I firmly believed there needed to be a lip balm in the pocket of every coat I owned. I also often left a package of tissues and a few dollar bills in my coats when I put them away for the season. It was a little time capsule for the me of a few months from now, a care package to open up and smile at.

The clerk helped me to wrap my flower pots in brown paper so that they wouldn't spill dirt on the way home. And soon I was pushing my cart out through the front doors. I stopped and scanned the lot in front of me. There was a man loading a couple of bags into the back of his car. He turned to see where the cart return was and found it a few rows down and on the other side. He began to push the cart, leaving the hatchback open behind him. And I saw a tiny window of possibility. I hustled my cart as unobtrusively as I could,

even hopping up onto the bar at the base and riding it like I had when I was a kid. Then I came to a quick halt, plunged my hand down into the sacks, and pulled out the purple hyacinth in its wrapping. I wedged it between two bulky bags in the stranger's car and rolled away as quickly as I could. He was still wrestling his cart into the rack when I peeked over my shoulder. And as he walked back to his car, he took his keys from his pocket and pushed a button to close the trunk. He hadn't spotted me.

I smiled with my head down as I rolled toward my own car, thinking of him in 20 minutes or so, standing in his driveway, loading the bags into his arms and finding the flower, maybe even checking his receipt to see if he had mistakenly bought it and not realized it at the time. And eventually giving up on the mystery

and just enjoying the breath of spring. I unloaded my own bags, then buckled the flowers into the passenger seat beside me. The sun was coming out from between patchy, low clouds, and I cracked the windows just a bit and found a station on the radio to listen to. As I sat waiting to pull out onto the street, I noticed the hill of snow in the corner of the lot again,

graying and icy. And rather than admonish it for holding on, I smiled and rested a hand on the pot of flowers beside me. Spring would come. No winter lasts forever. Sweet dreams.