Sleep story · cozy, rain
An attic room, if you have five quiet minutes — for an overtired night
Sloping ceiling, rain on the roof a foot above your head.
Reading it yourself. Back to the audio version.
The bed is pushed into the low corner, which makes it feel like a den. The room is in the roof, and the ceiling slopes so steeply that you have to duck near the window. There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years.
There is a dormer window with a deep sill, and a mug left on it from last night. The air up here is warmer than downstairs and smells of old wood. The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house.
Let your shoulder blades spread out and drop. Feel your heels sink a little into the mattress.
Let your feet get heavy first. Heavier than they need to be. Feel one shoulder go heavy, then the other.
A carrier bag of shopping is still on the chair, unpacked. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.
Your eyelids can be too heavy to open, and that is fine. Let your thumbs rest where they landed.
Your elbows can stop being hinges for now. Notice how much of you has already stopped moving.
The roof is holding, and the rain is outside, and that is the whole arrangement. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table.
Feel your heartbeat somewhere far away. Feel your wrists loosen.
The radiator is small and makes a ticking sound as it cools. The floorboards are bare and slightly uneven, and one of them always creaks.
Feel your belly rise and fall without any help from you. Let your toes stop holding on to anything.
The rain on the roof tiles is much closer and louder up here than anywhere else in the house. The rain changes intensity every few minutes and never quite stops.
Let your palms open if they were closed. Your ankles can go loose now.
There is a box of things under the eaves that nobody has opened in years. The lamp is on the floor beside the bed because there is no room for a table.
Notice the difference between a thought and the space around it. Notice anything you're holding onto from earlier today.
Your chest can be still now. Let your forearms get heavy and warm.
Just the dark. Follow the breath out, and let the next one arrive by itself.
You do not have to count them. Stay. Let the quiet be boring.
Slower now. Almost nothing to do now. The words can start to blur now.
Five quiet minutes is enough. Ten is generous.
Let the words go now, and take the quiet with you.