Nothing much happens: bedtime stories to help you sleep - Wind and Wildflowers

Episode Date: June 29, 2020

Our story tonight is called Wind and Wildflowers and it’s a story about a summer afternoon walk in the woods. It’s also about the moments before the rain rolls in, the secret life of trees, and a glass of iced tea drunk from a back porch glider. 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 Catherine Nicolai. I read and write all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens. Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. Follow us on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter if you need an extra bit of coziness. A beautiful book of our bedtime stories

is coming out all over the world in a few months. It will have many of your favorite stories, along with 16 new stories that will only ever appear in the book. It also has really beautiful illustrations, recipes, guided meditations, and lots more. To learn more, or to pre-order your copy, go to nothingmuchhappens.com. Now let me say a little about how this podcast works. Your brain needs a place to rest, a soft landing spot at the end of the day.

And the story I'm about to tell you is that place. If you'll just follow along with the sound of my voice and let the simple details of our story draw you in. Your mind will settle, and you will 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, you could listen again, or just think back through

any part of the story that you can remember, and you'll drop right back off. We're training your brain with each story and each night of sleep. You'll notice over time, as the habit builds builds that you fall asleep faster and more easily. Now it's time to set everything aside. Turn off the light and slide down into your sheets. Get as comfortable as you can. You are about to fall asleep. And you'll sleep deeply all night.

Let's take a deep breath in through the nose. And sigh through the mouth. Nice. One more. Breathe in, and out. Good. Our story tonight is called Wind and Wildflowers.

And it's a story about a summer afternoon walk in the woods. It's also about the moments before the rain rolls in. The secret life of trees. And a glass of iced tea, drunk from a back porch glider. Wind and wildflowers. I was out getting myself lost in the trails, deep, deep into the thickest woods, where the sunlight barely made it through the crowns of the trees, and the air was cool and smelled of pine needles and damp earth. That's where I was. Sometimes I ran over the trails, feeling a sudden burst of eager energy wanting to be expelled. I'd watch the blur of branches rushing past and feel my legs push the earth away behind me. When I tired, I'd let my momentum ebb until I was

back to a serene, meandering pace. If something caught my attention, I might stop for minutes to examine it, to notice the webbing in a leaf, or the tiny metallic sparkle in a rock on the path, or the ridges of tree roots. Tree roots seemed like their own magical category of wonder in the woods. And when I stepped carefully around them in the path, I thought about how trees talk to one another under the ground. how they reach out through the network of their roots to send warnings and supply food. I'd read that older trees, mother trees, can send sugars to younger saplings to help them grow, and that when a tree has reached the end of its life,

it often deposits all its resources back into the web of roots for other trees to absorb. From the path, I could see, up higher on a ridge, a tree that had fallen in a storm, and landed leaning against the crooked branches of its neighbor. Its roots were tipped up on an angle,

that network, that wood-wide web exposed. But its branches were full of green, healthy leaves. It had been knocked around a bit, but was still growing, still thriving in its own way. I wondered if its neighbors had shared some resources after the storm to help it through the season. They seemed no worse off if they had. A sudden knocking high in the branches broke through my thoughts, and I looked up to see a woodpecker hammering away. He was a tall bird, over a foot high from his gripping toes to the red tuft of feathers on his head.

I liked his confidence, to so unabashedly break the quiet of the forest. He didn't mind who heard. He needed his lunch, and was going to get it. So far, I had learned compassion from the trees and confidence from the birds. I kept walking. The trees were thinning out a bit around me. More of the bright summer light was working its way into the path, and the air was getting warmer.

I could hear the buzz, chirp, and stride elations of insects as I broke out of the shelter of the trees and into a broad clearing with high grasses. I was at the crown of a smallish hill when the tufted tops of the grass on either side of the path came almost to my shoulders. I'd been lost in the trees, and now I was lost here, in the lee.

Among the stalks were thin-stemmed wildflowers, being eagerly visited by fuzzy bees who were rolling their round bodies in pollen, then buzzing off to share it with another bloom down the way. Another system of mutual benefit. It seemed a lot of the world had been built on them. I put that remembrance in my pocket,

along with the trees and the birds, to carry home for future examination. There were Queen Anne's lace growing thickly through the field, and I remembered gathering them as a child, pushing my thumbnail through the stem in the absence of scissors, and bringing them in a ragged bouquet to my mother, who would kindly thank me for the gift, and set them up in a vase on the kitchen table. Is there a better gift than flowers?

In the years since, I haven't found one. The wind was picking up, and over the sound of the bees and the crickets. I could hear the rush of a million leaves and blades of grass brushing together in the air around me. Standing in a strong wind has always felt to me like being plugged directly into my own personal charger. The air moved over me, cutting around my arms and legs, pushing my hair out of my eyes and cooling the heat from the back of my neck. I felt like my shelves were being restocked

with all the energy I could ever use. And I looked back at the edge of the tree line and watched the wind flip through the leaves of the cottonwoods, turning them to show their silvery undersides. I'd had an argument with my grandmother when I was a child about the wind. We'd been sitting at her kitchen table with our empty lunch dishes and refilled glasses of iced tea in front of us. The wind had picked up suddenly, as it just had here on the hill. ill. I'd told her that I could see the wind, and she'd pointed out that what I was seeing was what the wind moved, that the wind was invisible and no one could see it. I'd been insistent and argued back with her for a while,

eventually giving up and feeling a bit bad for her. How sad, I'd thought, to not be able to see the wind. The air was getting cooler and the light was changing. A storm was coming, and I was glad for it. From the edge of the hill,

I could just make out the covered porch of my house, when I thought by the strength of the wind and the color of the sky, I might have enough time to make it home. I'd sit on the covered porch with a glass of tea to honor Grandma and a few scruffy wildflowers for Mom, and watch the line of rain come over the hill.

I'd rock back and forth in the porch glider and listen as it hit the roof and drenched the gardens. I take deep breaths of that sweet summer rain smell that you only get treated to a few days of the year and lean my head back against the cushion and close my head back against the cushion and close my eyes. Wind and wildflowers. I was out, getting myself lost in the trails, deep, deep into the thickest woods, where the sunlight barely

made it through the crowns of the trees, and the air was cool and smelled of pine needles and damp earth. That's where I was. Sometimes I ran over the trails, feeling a sudden burst of eager energy wanting to be expelled. I'd watch the blur of branches rushing past and feel my legs push the earth away behind me. And when I tired, I'd let my momentum ebb until I was back to a serene, meandering pace. If something caught my attention, I might stop for minutes to examine it, to notice the webbing in a leaf, or the tiny metallic sparkle in a rock on the path, or the ridges of tree roots. Tree roots seemed like their

own magical category of wonder in the woods. And when I stepped carefully around them and the path, I thought about how trees talk to one another under the ground, how they reach out through the network of their roots to send warnings and supply food. I'd read that older trees, mother trees, can send sugars to younger saplings to help them grow. And that, when a tree has reached the end of its life, it often deposits its resources back into the web of roots

for another tree to absorb. From the path, I could see, up higher on a ridge, a tree that had fallen in a storm and landed, leaning against the crooked branches of its neighbor. Its roots were tipped up on an angle. that network, that wood-wide web exposed. But its branches were full of green, healthy leaves.

It had been knocked around a bit, but was still growing, still thriving in its own way. I wondered if its neighbors had shared some resources after the storm to help it through the season. They seemed no worse off if they had. A sudden knocking, high in the branches, broke through my thoughts. And I looked up to see a woodpecker hammering away. He was a tall bird, over a foot high from his gripping toes to the red tuft of feathers on his head.

I liked his confidence to so unabashedly break the quiet of the forest. He didn't mind who heard. He needed his lunch and was going to get it. So far, I had learned compassion from the trees and confidence from the birds. I kept walking. The trees were thinning out a bit around me. More of the bright summer light was working its way into the path,

and the air was getting warmer. I could hear the buzz, chirp, and stridulations of insects as I broke out of the shelter of the trees and into a broad clearing with high grasses. I was at the crown of a smallish hill, and the tufted tops of the grass on either side of the path came almost to my shoulders. I'd been lost I was lost here in the lee. Among the stalks were thin-stemmed wildflowers, being eagerly visited by fuzzy bees who were rolling their round bodies in pollen, then buzzing off to share it with another bloom down the way. Another system of mutual benefit.

It seemed a lot of the world had been built on them. I put that remembrance in my pocket, along with the trees and the birds, to carry home for future examination. There were Queen Anne's lace growing thickly through the field, and I remembered gathering them as a child, pushing my thumbnail through the stems in the absence of scissors, and bringing them up in a vase on the kitchen table. Is there a better gift than flowers? In the years since,

I haven't found one. The wind was picking up, and over the sound of the bees and the crickets, I could hear the rush of a million leaves and blades of grass brushing together in the air around me. Standing in a strong wind has always felt to me like being plugged directly into my own personal charger. The air moved over me, cutting around my arms and legs,

pushing my hair out of my eyes and cooling the heat from the back of my neck. I felt like my shelves were being restocked with all the energy I could ever use. and I looked back at the edge of the tree line and watched the wind flip through the leaves of the cottonwoods, turning them to show their silvery undersides. I'd had an argument with my grandmother when I was a child about the wind. We'd been sitting at her kitchen table with our empty lunch dishes and refilled glasses of iced tea in front of us. The wind had picked up suddenly, as it just had here on the hill. I'd told her that I could see the wind,

and she'd pointed out that what I was seeing was what the wind moved, and that the wind was invisible, and that no one could see it. I'd been insistent and argued back with her for a while, eventually giving up, and feeling a bit bad for her. How sad, I thought, to not be able to see the wind. The air was getting cooler, and the light was changing. A storm was coming, and I was glad for it. From the edge of the sky, I might have time

to make it home. I'd sit on the covered porch with a glass of tea to honor Grandma and a few scruffy wildflowers for Mom, and watch the line of rain come over the hill. I'd rock back and forth in the porch glider and listen as it hit the roof and drenched the gardens. I'd take deep breaths of that sweet summer rain smell that you only get treated to a few days of the year. I'd lean my head back against the cushion and close my eyes. Sweet dreams.