Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep - Pillow Forts and Treehouses

Episode Date: March 14, 2022

Our story tonight is called Pillow Forts and Treehouses and it’s a story about a rainy afternoon tucked into a hideaway. It’s also about the big ideas of children, a bowl of pretzels and apple slices, and remembering that you are never too old to enjoy a fort.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 Catherine Nicolai. I write and read all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens with audio engineering by Bob Wittersheim. If you need more coziness in your life, and listen, I get it, I need maximum levels myself, we have options for you.

Snuggly hoodies, blankets, and sleep masks in our merch store. Bonus and ad-free stories through our subscription feeds. Charming photos, many featuring my dogs on our socials. and a book with a map of the village and illustrations of the bakery and the bookshop. Find it all at nothingmuchappens.com. Now, let me say something about how this works. Your mind needs a place to rest. Let me say something about how this works. Your mind needs a place to rest.

And without one, it's apt to race and wander and keep you up all night. The story I'm about to tell you is a landing spot. Let your attention linger on the sound of my voice and the soothing details of the story. Doing so will actually shift your brain activity from default mode to task positive mode, which just means you'll be able to sleep. I'll tell the story twice, and I'll go a little slower the second time through. If you wake in the middle of the night, turn your thoughts right back to whatever you can remember about the story, or even just the details of a pleasant memory, and you will drop right back off. Okay, it's time.

Put down whatever you've been looking at, and switch off the light. Slide down deep into your sheets. And make your body as comfortable as it can be. There's nothing you need to stay on top of. No one is waiting. And you have done enough for today. You're safe. Take a slow breath in through your nose, and let it out with a sigh.

Nice. Do one more. In, and out. Good. Our story tonight is called Pillow Forts and Tree Houses. And it's a story about a rainy afternoon tucked into a hideaway. It's also about the big ideas of children,

a bowl of pretzels and apple slices, and remembering that you are never too old to enjoy a fort. Pillow forts and tree houses. When I was a kid, playing with my friends, it seemed like our constant ambition to build a fort, to make a clubhouse, somehow to construct a space for ourselves that could only be permeated by grown-ups when snacks were handed through a flap in the blankets. The best version of this dream we could imagine was a treehouse.

And I remember sketching out plans with the stub of a pencil in a spiral-bound notebook with most of the pages ripped out. As long as you're dreaming, you may as well dream big. So our treehouse would have retractable stairs to keep out siblings who might try to take over the place, as well as, um, maybe bears? We were kids. It made sense at the time.

We'd have a fridge stocked with drinks and snacks. Where would we plug it in? Maybe a knot in the tree? Maybe we could figure out how to turn sap into electricity? Yeah, I'd make a note to invent that later. We'd have binoculars for spotting friends in their trees a few yards away.

A slide, or better yet, a zip line to carry us back down. And we'd hold our meetings up there. About what? You know, nine-year-old stuff. Very important. You wouldn't understand. We never achieved our ambition of a treehouse. The logistics quickly overwhelmed us, and when our friends, who claimed to have a cousin in the country who had one,

we looked at them with a good deal of skepticism. Maybe treehouses were only in movies or adventure stories. Still, we kept attempting to make forts wherever we could with school cancelled on one sunny snow day we met up at the end of the block where there was an empty lot full of knee-high snow it was late winter, and the deep chill was giving over

to slightly less frigid temps. So the snow packed together nicely, and we had a genius idea to shovel it into milk crates, the plastic kind with faded writing on the sides. All garages have them, though they aren't acquired in any way that I know. They just appear in a corner or on a shelf and get filled with battered softballs or swim goggles. We found when they were packed with heavy snow, they turned out perfect blocks to build with. We shoveled a flat space and started to lay them. First a foundation, and then rising walls. When the walls got to their third or fourth layer of blocks, we realized we'd forgotten to leave a space for the door and had fun kicking one out. Also, a ceiling stymied us.

And as we started to make plans to swipe tarps from our sheds and basements, we got hungry, and all trudged to the nearest of our houses to be fed soup and sandwiches while our snow pants dripped dry by the back door. Overnight, the snow turned to rain, and by morning our ice palace was a lake, with a few small, square icebergs floating in it. I'm sure we hadn't given up, just changed tactics again.

After all, what's better on a rainy day than a blanket fort? I'm sure we'd regrouped in someone's basement or living room and stacked couch cushions and bed pillows into a frame and draped blankets and coverlets over the whole thing. We'd probably had enough room to set out a board game and huddle around it, to roll the dice and mark down on the tiny pads of paper if we thought it had been Professor Plum

in the conservatory with a lead pipe. Or Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room with the candlestick. Years later, when I was a teenager in the last year of high school, I'd been on a hike through the woods in the back acres of my grandparents' farm and found a tree with flat wooden rungs nailed into the trunk like a ladder. I'd looked up and seen a little house, a platform balancing on a broad branch with a few walls of mismatched lumber nailed together and a small square window cut out.

The wood was bleached by the sun and when I reached up to test the strength of one of the rungs, it came apart in my hand. So, treehouses were real. Someone had made this one and played here, and though I couldn't climb up to see it myself, I bet there was in a corner, under a pile of dried old leaves, a toy or a book or a box of treasures. Even now, I'm still looking for those little places to tuck into.

Maybe less a clubhouse and more a nest. Today was a day like the one that had turned our ice house into slush. Rain coming down over the crunchy drifts of snow that were slowly shrinking. Water ran off the roof, drumming in the gutters and rushing in rivulets down the sidewalk and into the storm drains. I'd wanted to get out for a walk, but it would be a chilly, muddy mess, and so I'd reframed my thoughts a bit. If I couldn't go out, could I make staying in even more tempting? Was I too old to make a pillow fort? It turned out I was not. I chuckled to myself as I took the cushions off the couch and spread a tartan blanket over the living room rug.

It took a few tries, and I had fun along the way. But soon I had a little structure with cushions as walls. I got creative and wedged a broom between two chairs so it stood upright. Through the hole at the end of the broomstick, I threaded a strand of dental floss, which is sturdy stuff, by the way. When you need to hang something heavy,

get thee to the medicine cabinet and stretched it from the broom to a nail that usually held a painting behind the couch then I crossed my fingers and flung a top sheet over the floss. It made a draping cover, a tent to my little nest. I took the comforter from my bed and crawled inside with it, added more pillows, and laid back and looked up at the tented ceiling. I let out a slow sigh.

I felt a little giddy, so glad now to not be going out. I could stay in here all I wriggled back out and padded to the kitchen, where the rain was thrumming against the window over the sink. The snow was shrinking fast. At this rate, we'd wake up tomorrow to bare lawns on clear roofs. My neighbor still had a few reindeer and a light-up snowman in his yard. And I had a feeling this weekend would be the one that saw a lot of us taking down our decorations and twinkle lights. I made myself a tray of treats, apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon, a glass of grapefruit soda, and a bowl of those little peanut butter-filled pretzels.

I slid my tray into my hideaway along with my book. I could watch movies, listen to music, read and nap, or just watch the light change through the walls of my fort. We would come out of hibernation soon, but not quite yet. Pillow forts and tree houses.

When I was a kid, playing with my friends, it seemed like our constant ambition to build a fort, to make a clubhouse, somehow to create a space for ourselves that could only be permeated by grown-ups when snacks were handed through a flap in the blankets. The best version of this dream we could imagine

was a tree house. And I remember sketching out plans with the stub of a pencil in a spiral-bound notebook with most of the pages ripped out. As long as you're dreaming, you may as well dream big. So our treehouse would have retractable stairs to keep out siblings who might try to take over the place, as well as, um, maybe bears? We were kids. It made sense at the time.

We'd have a fridge, stocked with drinks and snacks. Where would we plug it in? Um, maybe a knot in the tree. Maybe we could figure out how to turn sap into electricity. Yeah, I'd make a note to invent that later. We'd have binoculars for spotting friends in their trees a few yards away, a slide or better yet a zip line to carry us back down.

And we'd hold our meetings up there. About what? You know, nine-year-old stuff. Very important. You wouldn't understand. We never achieved our ambition of a treehouse. The logistics quickly overwhelmed us. And when our friends, who claimed to have a cousin in the country, who had one.

We looked at them with a good deal of skepticism. Maybe tree houses were only in movies or adventure stories. Still, we kept attempting to make forts whenever we could. A school canceled on one sunny snow day. We met up at the end of the block, where there was an empty lot, full of knee-high snow.

It was late winter, and the deep chill was giving over to slightly less frigid temps, so the snow packed together nicely. And we had a genius idea to shovel it into milk crates. The plastic kind with faded writing on the sides. All garages have them, though they aren't acquired in any way that I know. They just appear in a corner or on a shelf and get filled with battered softballs or swim goggles. We found when they were packed with the heavy snow, they turned out perfect blocks to build with. We shoveled a flat space and started to lay them.

First a foundation and then rising walls. When the walls got to their third or fourth layer of blocks, we realized we'd forgotten to leave a space for a door, and had fun kicking one out. Also, a ceiling stymied us, and as we started to make plans to swipe tarps from our sheds and basement. We got hungry and all trudged to the nearest of our houses to be fed soup and sandwiches

while our snow pants dripped dry by the back door. Overnight, the snow turned to rain, and by morning, our ice palace was a lake with a few small square icebergs floating in it. I'm sure we hadn't just given up. We'd changed tactics again. After all, what's better on a rainy day than a blanket fort? I'm sure we'd regrouped in someone's basement or living room, and stacked couch cushions and bed pillows into a frame,

and draped blankets and coverlets over the whole thing. We'd probably had enough room to set out a board game and huddle around it to roll the dice and mark down on the tiny pads of paper. If we thought it had been Professor Plum in the conservatory with a lead pipe, or Mrs. Peacock in the billiard room with the candlestick.

Years later, when I was a teenager in the last year of high school, I'd been on a hike through the woods in the back acres of my grandparents' farm and found a tree with flat wooden rungs nailed into the trunk like a ladder. I'd looked up and seen a little house a platform balancing on a broad branch with a few walls of mismatched lumber

nailed together and a small square window cut out. The wood was bleached by the sun, and when I reached up to test the strength of one of the rungs, it came apart in my hand. So treehouses were real. Someone had made this one and played here. And though I couldn't climb up to see it myself, I bet there was in a corner under a pile of dried old leaves a toy toy, or a book,

or a box of treasures. Even now, I'm still looking for those little places to tuck into. Maybe less a clubhouse and more a nest. Today was a day like the one that had turned our ice house

into slush. Rain coming down over the crunchy drifts of snow that were slowly shrinking. Water ran off the roof, drumming in the gutters and rushing in rivulets down the sidewalk and into the storm drains. I'd wanted to get out for a walk, but it would be a chilly, muddy mess. And so I'd reframed my thoughts a bit. If I couldn't go out,

could I make staying in even more tempting? Was I too old to make a pillow fort? It turned out I was not. I chuckled to myself as I took the cushions off the couch and spread a tartan blanket over the living room rug. It took a few tries, and I had fun along the way. But soon I had a little structure with cushions as walls. I got creative and wedged a broom between two chairs so it stood upright. Through the hole at the end of the broomstick, I threaded a strand of dental floss, which is sturdy stuff, by the way.

When you need to hang something heavy usually held a painting behind the couch. Then I crossed my fingers and flung a top sheet over the floss. It made a draping cover, a tent to my little nest. I took the comforter from my bed and crawled inside with it. Added more pillows, and laid back,

and looked up at the tented ceiling. I let out a slow sigh. I felt a little giddy so glad now to not be going out I could stay in here all afternoon but first snacks

I wriggled back out But first, snacks. I wriggled back out and padded to the kitchen, where the rain was thrumming against the window over the sink. The snow was shrinking fast. At this rate, we'd wake up tomorrow to bare lawns and clear roofs. My neighbor still had a few reindeer and a light-up snowman in his yard. And I had a feeling this weekend would be the one that saw a lot of us

taking down our decorations and twinkle lights. I made myself a tray of treats, apple slices sprinkled with cinnamon, a glass of grapefruit soda, and a bowl of those little peanut butter filled pretzels. I slid my tray into my hideaway along with my book. I could watch movies, listen to music, read and nap. Or just watch the light change through the walls of my fort. We would come out of hibernation soon. But not quite yet.

Sweet dreams.