Keepsake (Encore)
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Welcome to Bedtime Stories for Everyone, in which nothing much happens. You feel good, and then you fall asleep. I'm Katherine Nicolai. I write and read all the stories you hear on Nothing Much Happens. Audio engineering is by Bob Wittersheim. We are bringing you an encore episode tonight, meaning that this story originally aired at some point in the past. It could have been recorded with different equipment in a different location. And since I'm a person... and not a computer. I sometimes sound just slightly different, but the stories are always soothing and family-friendly, and our wishes for you are always deep rest and sweet dreams. Now let me say a little about how to use this podcast. I have a story to tell you, and it exists, really,
simply as a soft place to rest your mind. I'll read it twice, and I'll go a little slower the second time through. Just follow along with my voice and the simple shape of the story. And before you know it, you'll be deeply asleep. If you wake in the middle of the night, you could listen again, or just think back through any details from the story that you can remember. Doing so shifts your brain out of default mode, and when that happens, you'll fall right back to sleep. This is brain training, and it does take a bit of practice, so have some patience if you are new to this. Our story tonight is called Keepsake. And it's a story about stepping back through time to remember a particular rainy day.
It's also about sunflowers, the things our younger selves can teach us, and a scrap of something saved for years in a box. Now, turn off your light. Put away anything you've been looking at or playing with. Get as comfortable as you can. You have done enough for the day. It is enough. And now you are safe. And all that is left is for you to rest. Take a slow, deep breath in through your nose. And out through your mouth. Nice. One more. In. And out. Good. Keepsake. It had started as a hunt for a particular pair of socks. They were thick and warm, and I felt pretty sure that they were dark gray with snowflakes on them, but I hadn't seen them in a while. They went all the way up to my knees, and when I just couldn't get my feet warm in the cold days of winter, They always did the trick.
But they didn't seem to be anywhere. I went through my dresser drawers, then searched the basket of lone socks on the shelf in the laundry room, hoping that maybe they had been separated in the wash. and were happily reunited, just waiting to be rolled into a ball to spend some quality time together. But they weren't there either. That led me to the hall closet, which didn't seem like a likely place for them to end up, but it was worth a try. And as soon as I opened the door, I fell under the spell of curiosity and nostalgia. Has this happened to you? You go up to the attic to get the extra leaf for the table, or down into the basement to bring up the giant soup pot that you only use a couple of times a year.
And somewhere along the way, a box catches your eye. And before you know it, you're sitting on the floor with old school papers in your hands and a fan of grainy photographs spread out around you. Sometimes you get caught. Someone comes looking for you. And all you can do is shrug your shoulders and hold up the program to a play you'd seen 20 years before and say, do you remember this? Well, that's what happened to me. Standing in the doorway of the hall closet, my chilly feet forgotten, as I reached up on tiptoe to slide a shoebox off the top shelf. It wasn't labeled. I don't know why I reached for it, except that part of me must have remembered it. The lid looked like it came from a different box. Letters and pictures were pushing their way out.
Lifting it off, my face broke open in a sudden smile. Small treasures, scraps of paper, a keychain from a roadside store a thousand miles from here. It's strange how you can go years without looking at things like this. Mementos and scribbled notes. But then when you see them again, you remember everything about them. An envelope with a phone number scrawled across it.
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