SOMETHING ONLY WE KNOW | A BEDTIME STORY FOR GROWN UPS
Image via Unsplash/@anniespratt
We all lead busy, stressful lives and often when we do finally get to fall into bed at the end of another day our bodies are exhausted - but our minds are still racing. Or perhaps you find it easy enough to fall asleep but wake in the middle of the night, with thoughts heavy on your mind. You’re not alone.
Through her new book Nothing Much Happens, based on the extremely popular podcast of the same name, Kathryn Nicolai offers a helping hand to ease the mind before bed, through the timeless appeal of bedtime stories. Bedtime stories for adults, that is, because it’s not just our kids that need a little help dozing off…
“Taking time to deliberately set aside devices and get comfortable in bed are part of a habit-making technique that tells the mind and body ‘It’s time.’ says Nicolai. “Lots of us are lying in bed at night, endlessly scrolling through upsetting news stories or reading nasty comments on social media and then trying to find a way to sleep peacefully. It is not working for most people. This is an alternative.”
Just a little warning: reading the following story might put you to sleep. But don’t worry - that’s the intention! This is an extract from Nothing Much Happens, so get comfy, snuggle up and enjoy!
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As a teenager I had a fascination with the romance of summer evenings.
I’d hop down the front steps of my house and think, anything could happen tonight. Likely, nothing much would. My friends and I would spend another night drinking coffee in a diner, watching a movie, or listening to music on someone’s car stereo in the lot by the park, but still, I never lost the feeling that summer nights had an extra dose of magical possibility.
It’s that warm night air— it makes us less afraid. The winter keeps us inside, nested and resting. The summer pushes us out: “Go meet someone, make a friend, discover something,” it says.
The feeling had stayed with me as an adult. I’d almost stayed in tonight. I’d stood in the kitchen rinsing my plate after dinner (pasta tossed with olive oil, the first few cherry tomatoes of the season and a handful of herbs from the window box) and looked out at the evening sky. I could continue to sketch in my notebook and listen to music— more of that sounded just fine. But then the wind shifted and I felt the touch of it on my face. The kitchen filled up with the scent of summer night air and I felt that same pull from when I was fifteen. “Come out . . . come see . . . who knows what you might find?”
A few minutes later, I was coasting on my bike through the streets of my neighbourhood. The day had been hot and the air rushing over my skin felt cooling and just right. I didn’t know where I was going, just kept pedalling. I stood up on my pedals and pushed my way up a hill, then soared giddily down the other side. I circled through the district of old Victorian homes and slowed down to nosily peek through the wrought iron gates. Some were hiding tidy English gardens with rows of evenly spaced delphinium plants. In others, I spied overgrown wilderness slowly reclaiming abandoned yards. I liked the abandoned places the best. They seemed full of secrets and stories.
I rode into town and skimmed past corners of bustling street cafés. People were eating and drinking and telling stories. I stopped at a light and looked at a couple sharing a meal. I thought it might be their first date. They seemed a little tentative as they threw quick glimpses back and forth before offering each other a laugh and an earnest smile. Ah, maybe the second date, I thought. I pedalled into the park and racked my bike by the bookstall, now shuttered for the night. I bought a lemon ice from a man with a cart and sat by the path for a few minutes to eat it.
There was something sweet on the edge of my memory. Something about this park. Maybe it was the lemon ice on my tongue that brought it back. Had we eaten it that night? I closed my eyes for a moment: it had been deep summer, the cicadas had been singing. We’d parked our bikes over there, in the rack by the fountain.
I decided to further explore the memory and got to my feet, dropping my empty cup in the recycle can. I turned toward a path at the back edge of the park, feeling pulled down it. It was narrow, gravel at first, then it became wood chips before it turned to packed sandy earth under my feet.
We’d come here, down this path, having found it just walking and exploring. The path opened into a broad meadow with a row of tall close boxwoods along one side. I turned to look at them now. They made a thick wall of green branches and seemed to mark the end of the park but . . . no. There was a space, camouflaged in the evening twilight, no wider than my shoulders where you could slip through and step down, and yes. Here it was.
That night, we’d stepped through and found this place, a sunken garden. We’d stood with wide eyes and I’d laughed in a nervous giddy way. We thought we’d stumbled on a place that had never been found before. Isn’t that the way when you’re young? You feel like you are discovering and inventing everything as you go. Like no one’s ever loved like this before or had their heart broken like yours, or a million other instances of growing up and becoming yourself.
I studied the stone pool, long and a little green, running along the line of trees, and a small mossy bench in the corner and a crumbling statue of a lady disappearing into ivy. My heart beat a bit faster remembering. We’d been like the couple at the café, tentative and a little timid. But we couldn’t beat back the power of a summer night; it won out over shyness. Had it been me to reach out first? To lean in? Or had it been . . . ? Hmmm.
On my way back home, I pedalled along with the gift of memory like a sweet taste left on the tongue, so glad I’d gone out tonight. On a summer night, anything might happen. I could find my way back to something forgotten, to a place only we knew.
Sweet dreams.
