Speaker 1: Welcome to season four of Bedtime Stories for Grown Ups,
Speaker 1: in which nothing much happens, you feel good, and then
Speaker 1: you fall asleep. All stories are written and read by me,
Speaker 1: Catherine Nikolay, with audio engineering by Bob Wittersheim. Nothing Much
Speaker 1: Happens is a proud member of the Curious cast podcast network.
Speaker 1: Follow us on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter for some
Speaker 1: extra coziness and if you need a little bit more,
Speaker 1: nothing much in your life had over to Nothing Much
Speaker 1: Happens dot com. So many of you have told me
Speaker 1: that you've turned first this than that into a daily mantra,
Speaker 1: or that you start your day by looking for three
Speaker 1: good things. It's inspired us to create some special pieces
Speaker 1: with those words. Order yours to day, and I'll wrap
Speaker 1: it up with my own two hands, tuck in a
Speaker 1: thank you note and send it out to you. Now,
Speaker 1: let me tell you a little about how to use
Speaker 1: this podcast. Your mind needs a place to rest, someplace
Speaker 1: quiet and simple and soft, and that's what the story
Speaker 1: will be. A landing place, a nest for your mind.
Speaker 1: All you have to do is listen, follow along with
Speaker 1: the sound of my voice, and before you know it,
Speaker 1: you'll be waking up tomorrow feeling rested and refreshed. I'll
Speaker 1: read the story twice, and I'll go a little slower
Speaker 1: when I get to the second telling. If you wake
Speaker 1: again in the middle of the night, try thinking back
Speaker 1: to any part of the story you can remember. Put
Speaker 1: your mind right back into its nest, and you'll drop
Speaker 1: right back off. Now it's time switch everything off. Slide
Speaker 1: down into your sheets, and notice how good it feels
Speaker 1: to be in your bed, to be about to fall asleep.
Speaker 1: Let's take a deep breath in through the nose and
Speaker 1: out through the mouth. Good, Do that again, Breathe in
Speaker 1: and out. Our story tonight is called a letter in
Speaker 1: an envelope, and it's a story about the everyday magic
Speaker 1: of messages sent between friends. It's also about peanut butter
Speaker 1: spread on toast, a favorite spot on the back porch,
Speaker 1: and a lifelong habit of saving stories. A letter in
Speaker 1: an envelope. Maybe it was second grade, or maybe third
Speaker 1: we'd read a story about pen pals, about a little
Speaker 1: girl from Portugal and a little boy from Japan. They
Speaker 1: sent letters back and forth, telling about their families and
Speaker 1: pets and schools. There'd been an illustration of each of
Speaker 1: them waiting for the mail to come, eager to hear
Speaker 1: again from a friend on the other side of the world.
Speaker 1: It created a bit of a craze for letter writing
Speaker 1: in our class, and our teacher had scented us with
Speaker 1: a list of names and addresses of children in a
Speaker 1: class in Poland who were keen on being pen pals.
Speaker 1: I'd drawn the name of a girl called Anna and
Speaker 1: dutifully set to write our letter. I don't remember much
Speaker 1: now about what I wrote her, or even what she
Speaker 1: wrote me, but I do remember the excitement of finding
Speaker 1: her letter in my mailbox, the green paper of the envelope,
Speaker 1: and the exotic look of her handwriting. I remember her
Speaker 1: number fours, and now she inked out her jay's and f's.
Speaker 1: While Anna and I lost touch. Among the shifting responsibilities
Speaker 1: a fourth grade, I never stopped writing letters and mailing
Speaker 1: them off to friends. Flowers pressed into their pages, drawings
Speaker 1: of birds and trees haphazardly sketched across their envelopes, sometimes
Speaker 1: just a postcard with a joke written hastily, sometimes many pages,
Speaker 1: kneading extra stamps and strips of tape to hold them closed.
Speaker 1: I had bundles of letters tied with scraps of ribbon
Speaker 1: and bits of twine in a long, low box tucked
Speaker 1: under my bed, and sometimes on a rainy day, I'd
Speaker 1: dig out a pack to see what we were all
Speaker 1: talking about. Ten years ago. To day, I had a
Speaker 1: letter to read and a letter to write. A good day.
Speaker 1: I'd heard the flap and clatter of my mail slot
Speaker 1: as I'd been spreading peanut butter onto a thick slice
Speaker 1: of toast or breakfast. I carried the handful of envelopes
Speaker 1: and mailers back to my kitchen table, and I spotted
Speaker 1: the corner of an envelope, pale blue with a hand
Speaker 1: drawn heart, and I felt that same excitement that the
Speaker 1: boy from Japan and the girl from Portugal had felt.
Speaker 1: It was a little square envelope with my name written
Speaker 1: in tiny, neat script, and stickers of flowers sealing it shut.
Speaker 1: I propped it up against my glass of grapefruit juice
Speaker 1: and sat down to finish my toast. I liked waiting
Speaker 1: to open a letter for a bit, letting the anticipation build.
Speaker 1: Plus I didn't want to get peanut butter on that
Speaker 1: pretty blue paper, and I was fairly sure that I would.
Speaker 1: I took my time working my way through my toast
Speaker 1: and juice and a lovely ripe banana. I tidied up
Speaker 1: my plates and washed my hands, and carried my letter
Speaker 1: to a sunny spot on the back porch, where I
Speaker 1: could look out at the growing garden as I read.
Speaker 1: The letter was from a friend since childhood. We'd grown
Speaker 1: up on the same street but now lived far far apart.
Speaker 1: Many people who rarely see each other write long letters
Speaker 1: to catch up updates on work and love and family,
Speaker 1: and certainly that is all useful and welcome information. But
Speaker 1: my friend and I didn't send those kind of letters
Speaker 1: to each other. We sent little collections of interesting things,
Speaker 1: whatever seemed curious to us at the time of sending.
Speaker 1: Inside the envelope, I found a list of books she'd
Speaker 1: read in the past month, with a series of hand
Speaker 1: drawn stars beside each one to show what she'd thought,
Speaker 1: a recipe on an index card for a curry dish.
Speaker 1: Her neighbor made a ticket stub from a place she'd seen,
Speaker 1: with a line that had stuck in her head written
Speaker 1: on the back, a note from her little boy about
Speaker 1: summer camp, and a stick of gum the kind I
Speaker 1: had loved to chew in high school. I opened the
Speaker 1: foil and showed it right there on the porch. As
Speaker 1: I looked back through the little stash of fines, I'd
Speaker 1: read a couple of the same books and thought about
Speaker 1: how i'd have ranked them. I realized I had all
Speaker 1: the ingredients for the curry dish, and figured that that
Speaker 1: was dinner sorted out. I remembered some stories from our
Speaker 1: own days at summer camp and thought I might write
Speaker 1: some out for my reply. I stepped back inside and
Speaker 1: flipped through my stationary box. I had papers and lots
Speaker 1: of sizes and shades, postcards bought on faraway travels or
Speaker 1: just from the corner store, but also a stack of
Speaker 1: old photos. I'd collecting them for ages, some from old
Speaker 1: albums in the attic, and some found here and there
Speaker 1: in garage sales and flea markets. I sometimes held an
Speaker 1: old photo, a very old one, and wondered if it
Speaker 1: was the last image left of the person pictured. They'd
Speaker 1: had a whole life somewhere, loves and losses, favorite songs
Speaker 1: and sworn enemies, and it felt like taking a moment
Speaker 1: to look at them gave them a breath of life again.
Speaker 1: I shuffled through them and pulled out a polaroid from
Speaker 1: the sixties of a little boy sitting on a sofa
Speaker 1: with his grandma, and another older from the thirties of
Speaker 1: two girls in dresses standing in front of a clapboard
Speaker 1: front porch. On the strip of space under the polaroid,
Speaker 1: I wrote, stuff a date with almond butter or mint leaves,
Speaker 1: but not both. On the back of the picture of
Speaker 1: the girls, I wrote, ask your mom about the camp
Speaker 1: talent show? Does she still tap dance? I smiled at
Speaker 1: the memory and wondered if it would make the little
Speaker 1: boy laugh. I added in a scrap i'd cut from
Speaker 1: the police blotter of the local paper about a woman
Speaker 1: who had been stealing flowers from her neighbor's yard, underlining
Speaker 1: the words suspect has not been apprehended. Lastly, I jotted
Speaker 1: down a few lines about a lecture I went to
Speaker 1: at the library the week before about grafting apple trees.
Speaker 1: The scion, I explained, was the bit being grafted the rootstock,
Speaker 1: I told her was its new home. I bundled it
Speaker 1: all into an envelope and sealed it with red wax,
Speaker 1: pressing a star shaped stamp into it. A letter received
Speaker 1: and a letter written wondering if my friend would remember
Speaker 1: the story from our year and third grade, I wrote
Speaker 1: across the envelope from Japan to Portugal, a letter in
Speaker 1: an envelope. Maybe it was second grade or maybe third
Speaker 1: we'd read a story about pen pals, about a little
Speaker 1: girl from Portugal and a little boy from Japan. They
Speaker 1: sent letters back and forth, telling about their families and
Speaker 1: pets and schools. There'd been an illustration of each of
Speaker 1: them waiting for the mail to come, eager to hear
Speaker 1: again from a friend on the other side of the world.
Speaker 1: It created a bit of a craze for letter writing
Speaker 1: in our class, and our teacher had presented us with
Speaker 1: a list of names and addresses of children in a
Speaker 1: class in Poland who are keen on being pen pals.
Speaker 1: I drawn the name of a girl called Anna and
Speaker 1: dutifully set to write her a letter. I don't remember
Speaker 1: much about what I wrote her, or even what she
Speaker 1: wrote me, but I do remember the excitement of finding
Speaker 1: her letter in my mailbox, the green paper of the envelope,
Speaker 1: and the exotic look of her handwriting. I remember her
Speaker 1: number fours and how she inked out her jays and fs.
Speaker 1: While Anna and I lost touch. Among the shifting responsibilities
Speaker 1: of fourth grade, I never stopped writing letters and mailing
Speaker 1: them off to friends. Flowers pressed into their pages, drawings
Speaker 1: of birds and trees haphazardly sketched across their envelopes, sometimes
Speaker 1: just a postcard with a joke written hastily, sometimes many pages,
Speaker 1: kneading extra stamps and strips of tape to hold them closed.
Speaker 1: I had bundles of letters tied with scraps of ribbon
Speaker 1: and bits of twine in a long, low box tucked
Speaker 1: under my bed, and sometimes on a rainy day, I'd
Speaker 1: dig out a pack and see what we were all
Speaker 1: talking about ten years ago. Today I had a letter
Speaker 1: to read and a letter to write. A good day.
Speaker 1: I had heard the flap and clatter of my mail
Speaker 1: slot as I had been spreading peanut butter on a
Speaker 1: thick slice of toast for breakfast. I carried the handful
Speaker 1: of envelopes and mailers back to my kitchen table, and
Speaker 1: I spotted the corner of an envelope, pale blue with
Speaker 1: a hand drawn heart, and I felt that same excitement
Speaker 1: that the boy from Japan and the girl from Portugal
Speaker 1: had felt. It was a little square envelope with my
Speaker 1: name written in tiny, neat script and stickers of flowers
Speaker 1: sealing it shut. I propped it up against my glass
Speaker 1: of grapefruit juice and sat down to finish my toast.
Speaker 1: I liked waiting to open a letter for a bit,
Speaker 1: letting the anticipation build. Plus I didn't want to get
Speaker 1: peanut butter on that pretty blue paper, and I was
Speaker 1: fairly sure that I would. I took my time, working
Speaker 1: my way through my toast and juice and a lovely
Speaker 1: ripe banana. I tidied up my plates and washed my hands,
Speaker 1: and carried my letter to a sunny spot on the
Speaker 1: back porch, where I could look out at the growing
Speaker 1: guard as I read. The letter was from a friend
Speaker 1: since childhood. We'd grown up on the same street but
Speaker 1: now lived far apart. Many people who rarely see each
Speaker 1: other write long letters to catch up updates on work
Speaker 1: and love and family, and certainly that is all useful
Speaker 1: and welcome information. But my friend and I didn't send
Speaker 1: those kind of letters to each other. We sent little
Speaker 1: collections of interesting things, whatever seemed curious to us at
Speaker 1: the time. Inside the envelope, I found a list of
Speaker 1: books she'd read in the past, month, with a series
Speaker 1: of hand drawn stars beside each one to show what
Speaker 1: she thought a recipe on an index card for a
Speaker 1: curry dish. Her neighbor made a ticket stub from a
Speaker 1: play she had seen with a line that had stuck
Speaker 1: in her head. On the back, a note from her
Speaker 1: little boy about summer camp, and a stick of gum,
Speaker 1: the kind I had loved to chew in high school.
Speaker 1: I opened the foil and showed it right there on
Speaker 1: the porch. As I looked back through the little stash
Speaker 1: of fines, I'd read a couple of the same books
Speaker 1: and thought about how i'd have ranked them. I realized
Speaker 1: I had all the ingredients for the curry dish and
Speaker 1: figured that was dinner sorted out. I remembered some stories
Speaker 1: from our own days at summer camp and thought I
Speaker 1: might write some out for my reply. I stepped back
Speaker 1: inside and flipped through my stationary box. I had papers
Speaker 1: in lots of sizes and shades, postcards bought on far
Speaker 1: away travels or just from the corner store, but also
Speaker 1: a stack of old photos. I'd been collecting them for ages,
Speaker 1: some from old albums in the attic, and some found
Speaker 1: here and there in garage sales and flea markets. I
Speaker 1: sometimes held an old photo, a very old one, and
Speaker 1: wondered if it was the last image left of the
Speaker 1: person pictured. They'd had a whole life somewhere, loves and losses,
Speaker 1: favorite songs and sworn enemies, and it felt like taking
Speaker 1: a moment to look at them gave them a breath
Speaker 1: of life again. I shuffled through them and pulled out
Speaker 1: a polaroid from the sixties of a little boy sitting
Speaker 1: on a sofa with his grandma, and another older from
Speaker 1: the thirties of two girls in dresses standing in front
Speaker 1: of a clapboard front porch. On the strip of space
Speaker 1: under the polaroid, I wrote stuff a date with almond
Speaker 1: butter or mint leaves, but not both. On the back
Speaker 1: of the picture of the girls, I wrote, ask your
Speaker 1: mom about the camp talent show? Does she still tap dance?
Speaker 1: I smiled at the memory and wondered if it would
Speaker 1: make the little boy laugh. I added in a scrap
Speaker 1: by cut from the police blotter of the local paper
Speaker 1: about a woman who had been stealing flowers from her
Speaker 1: neighbor's yard, underlining the words suspect has not been apprehended Lastly,
Speaker 1: I jotted down a few lines about a lecture I
Speaker 1: went to at the library the week before about grafting
Speaker 1: apple trees. The scion, I explained, was the bit being grafted.
Speaker 1: The rootstock, I told her, was its new home. I
Speaker 1: bundled it all into an envelope and sealed it with
Speaker 1: red wax, pressing a star shaped stamp into it. A
Speaker 1: letter received and a letter written. Wondering if my friend
Speaker 1: would remember the story from our year in third grade,
Speaker 1: I wrote across the envelope from Japan to Portugal. Sweet Dreams.