Sleep story · rain, green
A garden in the rain (a sleep story), if you are doing this instead of scrolling — for a night when you do not want to think
Steady rain on leaves, and a chair under an awning that stays dry.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
The rain has settled into the kind that will last all afternoon without getting heavier. Under the awning it is dry, and the sound is a steady, unhurried patter. Water runs off the gutter in a thin, continuous line.
The rain on the roof of the awning is a lower sound than the rain on the leaves. There is nothing to do about any of it, which is the good part. The leaves in the border are dark and glossy and moving slightly.
Your fingers can stop doing anything at all. Let your tongue sit heavy in your mouth.
Notice how much of you has already stopped moving. Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you.
The watering can by the tap is full and nobody needs it. A snail is making its way along the bottom of the wall, going nowhere in particular.
Your ankles can go loose now. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.
Let your hands be completely still. Let your upper arms fall wherever gravity puts them.
There is a wooden bench that nobody has sat on for an hour. The path has gone darker where it is wet, and there are two small puddles near the step.
Let your thighs be as heavy as they want to be. Feel your cheeks let go.
Somewhere in the hedge, a bird is sitting it out. The earth smells the way it does after a long dry spell.
Let your lower back sink down into the mattress. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.
Notice anything you're holding onto from earlier today. Notice any urge to check something. You can wait two more minutes.
Let the back of your neck lengthen out. Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine.
Let it all get further away. Just the dark.
You can stop listening properly. Sleep. You do not have to count them.
Stay. Let your attention settle somewhere low, like your feet. Let the thoughts come and go without you getting up to answer.
Choosing this over scrolling counts as a good decision, even a small one.
Goodnight. There is nothing left to do.