Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep - The Leaf House

Episode Date: October 5, 2020

Our story tonight is called The Leaf House and it’s a story about an autumn day spent working in the yard. It’s also a game remembered from childhood, a spider’s web spun on a chrysanthemum, and different ways to think about home. So get cozy and ready to sleep. Buy the book Get beautiful NMH merch Get autographed copies Get our ad-free and bonus episodesPurchase 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 read and write all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens. Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. My book, Nothing Much Happens, comes out in the U.S. and Canada on October 6th. It's available now for pre-order from all your favorite booksellers. And depending on when you are hearing this,

you might still have a few hours to get in on a special offer for anyone in the U.S. and Canada who pre-orders the book by October 6th. I'm always inspired by hearing from you, and this time I want you to help me write a new story. Pre-order the book, and you can enter for a chance to win a story built around your favorite cozy autumn things. I'll be calling the winner directly, and we'll have ourselves a nice long chat about what would be in your own personal bedtime story. To pre-order and to enter the contest, go to nothingmuchappens.com. Also, on Friday, October 9th, at 7 p.m. Eastern Time,

I'll be hosted by Literati Bookstore in Ann Arbor for a virtual event. We'll be talking about the book, I'll be answering your questions, and we'll end the night with a reading of one of the new stories that will never be on the podcast. I'd love to see you there. To join us, head to the events page of NothingMuchHappens.com. Now, I'm about to tell you a bedtime story. It's simple, and not much happens in it. And that is the idea.

The story is a soft place to rest your mind. A simple and pleasant way to occupy it, so that it doesn't wander away and keep you up. All you need to do is listen. Just follow along with the sound of my voice and the simple details of the story. And soon, very soon, you'll be deeply asleep.

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, you could listen again, or just think your way back through any part of the story that you can remember. We are training your brain to settle and rest. And the more you do this, the better your sleep will get. Now, it's time. Turn off your light. Snuggle your body down into your sheets and get as comfortable can. Take a moment just to feel how good it is to be in bed, to be about to sleep. 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. This will help to keep it relaxed.

Let's take a deep breath in through the nose and out through the mouth. Nice. Let's do that again. Breathe in. And out. Good. Our story tonight is called The Leaf House. And it's a story about an autumn day spent working in the yard.

It's also about a game remembered from childhood, a spider's web spun on a chrysanthemum, and different ways to think about home. The Leaf House On a back corner of the property, built by the generation before, was a small tool shed that housed the lawnmower and the rakes and snow shovels, but looked a bit like a

child's playhouse. It must have been built by someone who was as much artist as craftsperson, because it clearly hadn't come as a kit in which you slip tab B into slot L. It was made with planks of slightly mismatched wood that had been skillfully put together, like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. It had windows on either side of the single door, with individual panes of glass fitted into hand-smoothed glazing, and a peaked roof with a decorative barge board of twisting curlicues. In the spring, I'd repainted it its usual shade of sunny yellow, and in the summer, I'd filled its small window boxes with bright pink impatience. Yesterday I'd cleared them out

setting a few small round pumpkins in their place and hung baskets of purple mums from hooks in the overhanging roof. When I stepped up to open its door today, the sunlight caught on a thin strand of spiderweb that stretched from the edge of the pot of flowers down to the stem of one of the pumpkins. I got lost, just looking at it for a moment, marveling at the way the light bounced on the silk strand. I thought of the resourceful spider, finding these newly placed offerings,

and wasting no time in setting up house. It was a cool morning, not cold, but not far from it, and as I pulled open the creaking shed door, I could see my breath in the air. No matter, I thought. Soon enough I'd be warmed through with work. inside the shed I shifted aside the long handled spades and trowels that had been center stage in the spring and summer and dug out a rake for today's work I found a well-worn pair of garden gloves

and stepped out into the air to clap them together a few times, knocking out dirt and dust. The trees were dropping leaves in a slow-motion technicolor downpour. They still had plenty left to drop, and today was just a part of the autumn chores, but I didn't mind a bit. I was happy to have a job to do, and a sunny day to do it on.

Some work is hard to gauge. You spend hours toiling, and when you step back to look at what you've done, find it difficult to mark any progress. But this kind of work, raking leaves, clearing flower beds, I knew that when I put my tools away at the end of the day, I could look across the yard and see a job well done. I carried my rake to a spot under a tall maple, whose leaves were a deep, rusty red. I started to rake, pulling layers of leaves this way and that, and making tall, dry piles that smelled musky-sweet and earthy as the sun shone on them.

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. I raked the leaves onto tarps and pulled them over to spread onto my vegetable garden. Later, I'd mulch them into the soil. They'd break down over the next several months, making compost for next year's planting. From the maple I worked my way over to the row of oak trees that stood along one side of the yard. These leaves were narrow, and most were a bright, electric yellow,

though some were tipped with red, and others were the pale, dry brown of craft paper and school lunch bags. I thought of a game we'd played as children. What had we called it? I nodded into the memory as I gathered the leaves to me. We'd called it Leaf House. I'm sure we'd been assigned the chore of raking leaves, but had turned it into a game, which, likely to my parents' consternation, hadn't cleared the yard at all, but had merely spread the leaves more artistically over the grass. We'd each stake a claim on some section of the yard and use our rakes to draw out a street that connected them.

Then we'd rake away, drawing out the shape of our houses. Mine always had long corridors with a dozen rooms leading off of them. Here was the kitchen, and I'd scrape a pile of leaves together to be the table. Here was the bedroom, and I'd rake a path around the bed. After we'd finished staking out the spaces, we'd go visiting. One of us would stand on the front doorstep of another's house and knock their hand against the bare air, thumping their foot against the ground or calling out, knock, knock, knock. Then the other would put down their book of leaves and wind their way to the front door, wondering loudly, who could

that be? At some point, we'd scrap the designs and build something else. A school, a grocery store, an amusement park. A game requiring more imagination as it went, but we kept up just fine. It most certainly ended with us all banding together to build the tallest pile of leaves we could manage, then taking running jumps into them and scattering them back out in every direction. My own piles were finally, and mostly, shifted over to the garden.

In another week or two, I'd have the whole thing to do all over again. I took my rake and gloves back to the shed and sat down on the stepping stones to drink a bit more water. I thought of the little shed, built to look like a tiny home, of the spider setting up housekeeping among the mums and pumpkins, and us, as kids, scraping away the leaves to make bedrooms and kitchens. It's the first thing we play at, making homes,

then something we repeat over and over. I leaned back on my hands and looked out over the cleared yard. The grass, for now, was still green. The leaves were spread out over the bare soil, and I thought of the insects, who were probably right now burrowing down under them. The birds who'd been making V's in the sky as the day got colder, and the deer out somewhere beyond my sight, readying for the winter.

All of us pulled by the same instinct. All of us busy making a home. The leaf house. On a back corner of the property built by the generation before, was a small tool shed that housed the lawnmower and the rakes and snow shovels, but looked a bit like a child's playhouse. It must have been built by someone

who was as much artist as craft person because it clearly hadn't come as a kit in which you slipped tab B into slot L. It was made with planks of slightly mismatched wood that had been skillfully put together like pieces in a jigsaw puzzle. It had windows on either side of the single door, with individual panes of glass fitted fitted into hand-smoothed glazing, and a peaked roof with a decorative bargeboard of twisting curlicues. In the spring, I'd repainted it, its usual shade of sunny yellow. And in the summer I'd filled its small window boxes with bright pink impatience.

Yesterday I'd cleared them out, setting a few small round pumpkins in their place. And hung baskets of purple mums from hooks in the overhanging roof. When I stepped up to open its door today, the sunlight caught on a thin strand of spider web that stretched from the edge of the pot of flowers down to the stem of one of the pumpkins. I got lost, just looking at it for a moment,

marveling at the way the light bounced on the silk strand. I thought of the resourceful spider, finding these newly placed offerings, and wasting no time in setting up house. It was a cool morning, not cold, but not far from it. And as I pulled open the creaking shed door, I could see my breath in the air. No matter, I thought.

Soon enough I'd be warmed through with work. Inside the shed, I shifted aside the long-handled spades and trowels that had been center stage in the spring and summer, and dug out a rake for today's work. I found a well-worn pair of garden gloves, and stepped out into the air to clap them together a few times, knocking out dirt and dust. The trees were dropping leaves in a slow-motion technicolor downpour. They still had plenty left to drop, and today was just a part of the autumn chores. But I didn't mind a bit. I was happy to have a job to do,

and a sunny day to do it on. Some work is hard to gauge. You can spend hours toiling. And when you step back to look at what you've done, find it difficult to mark any progress. But this kind of work, raking leaves,

clearing flowerbeds, I knew that when I put my tools away at the end of the day, I could look across the yard and see a job well done. I carried my rake to a spot under a tall maple whose leaves were a deep, rusty red. I started to rake, pulling layers of leaves this way and that, and making tall dry piles that smelled musky sweet and earthy as the sun shone on them. 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.

I raked the leaves onto tarps and pulled them over to spread onto my vegetable garden. Later, I'd mulch them into the soil. They'd break down over the next several months, making compost for next year's planting. From the maple, I worked my way over to the row of oak trees that stood along one side of the yard. These leaves were narrow, and most were a bright electric yellow, though some were tipped with red, and others were the pale dry brown of craft paper and school lunch bags. I thought of a game we'd played as children. What had we called it?

I nodded into the memory as I gathered the leaves to me. We'd called it Leaf House. I'm sure we'd been assigned the chore of raking leaves, but had turned it into a game which, likely to my parents' consternation, hadn't cleared the yard at all, but had merely spread the leaves more artistically over the grass. We'd each stake a claim on some section of the yard and use our rakes to draw out a street that connected them.

Then we'd rake away, drawing out the shape of our houses. Mine always had long corridors with a dozen rooms leading off them. Here was the kitchen. And I'd scrape a pile of leaves together to be the table. Here was the bedroom, and I'd rake a path around the bed. After we'd finished staking out the spaces, we'd go visiting. One of us would stand on the front doorstep of another's

house and knock their hand against the bare air, thumping their foot against the ground ground, or calling out, knock, knock, knock. Then the other would put down their book of leaves and wind their way to the door, wondering loudly, who could that be? At some point, we'd scrap the designs and build something else. A grocery store, a school, an amusement park. The game requiring more imagination as it went on, but we kept up just fine. It most certainly ended with all of us banding together to build the tallest pile of leaves we could manage, then taking running jumps into them and scattering them back out in every direction.

My own piles were finally, and mostly, shifted over to the garden. In another week or two, I'd have the whole thing to do all over again. I took my rake and gloves back to the shed and sat down on the stepping stones to drink a bit more water. I thought of the little shed, built to look like a tiny home, of the spider setting up housekeeping among the mums and pumpkins and us as kids scraping away the leaves to make bedrooms and kitchens. It's the first thing we play at, making homes,

then something we repeat over and over. I leaned back on my hands and looked out over the cleared yard. The grass, for now, was still green. The leaves were spread out over the bare soil, and I thought of the insects, who were probably, right now, burrowing down under them. The birds who'd been making V's in the sky as the days got cooler.

And the deer out somewhere beyond my sight, readying for the winter. All of us, pulled by the same instinct. All of us busy, making a home. Sweet dreams.